Aeronautical Data Integrity

Data Integrity?

Data integrity is the extent to which data is stored and transported without being corrupted. ICAO Annex 15 defines the assurance level of data integrity:

—A degree of assurance that an aeronautical data and its value has not been lost or altered since the origination or authorized amendment.

Aeronautical data, however, often goes through a number of process to format or digest it into aeronautical information. The original data is then mixed with others, or taken into calculation, or presented in a way that makes it sometimes difficult to keep a high assurance level.

Facilis.aero software aims to collect aeronautical data in a digital form from its creation, or as close as possible from its creator (the Data Originator), and keep it untouched, together with metadata, until the last moment: its use by Data Users. When that is not possible, Facilis.aero records all and any change to the data for traceability purpose.

Data integrity and AIM

AIM means managing digital and structured data. One cannot pretend to implement AIM and still collect data on paper or by fax, phone, smoke signals, or even email. All these means of communication require re-encoding the data in an AIS system at some time.

In many cases, the Data Provider has the information in digital form already. Sometimes the Data Originator even produces the data digitally from the start. Why re-encode it if it can be provided electronically in the first place? Re-encoding data at the AIS office is a risk for data integrity. By collecting it directly in digital form using Facilis.aero, the AIS office can automatically verify data quality and ensure data integrity in one go.