What Is Data Accuracy? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices

Data accuracy is crucial for businesses as it impacts their bottom line and can lead to negative consequences if inaccurate. It is one of the ten dimensions of data quality, which refers to how well data describes the real world. Poor data accuracy can result from issues such as accidental manual data entry or mismatched geographies. To measure data accuracy, businesses can compare their data against a reference set, corroborate it with other data, and use anomaly detection software to identify unexpected values or events in a dataset. Ensuring data accuracy helps prevent negative downstream impacts on various uses of data, such as artificial intelligence and data analytics.