---
title: "Provenance"
chunk: 6/6
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:44:58.110534+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Computers and law ==
The term provenance is used when ascertaining the source of goods such as computer hardware to assess if they are genuine or counterfeit. Chain of custody is an equivalent term used in law, especially for evidence in criminal or commercial cases.
Software provenance encompasses the origin of software and its licensing terms. For example, when incorporating a free, open source or proprietary software component in an application, one may wish to understand its provenance to ensure that licensing requirements are fulfilled and that other software characteristics can be understood.
Data provenance covers the provenance of computerized data. There are two main aspects of data provenance: ownership of the data and data usage. Ownership will tell the user who is responsible for the source of the data, ideally including information on the originator of the data. Data usage gives details regarding how the data has been used and modified and often includes information on how to cite the data source or sources.
Data provenance is of particular concern with electronic data, as data sets are often modified and copied without proper citation or acknowledgement of the originating data set. Databases make it easy to select specific information from data sets and merge this data with other data sources without any documentation of how the data was obtained or how it was modified from the original data set or sets.
The automated analysis of data provenance graphs has been described as a mean to verify compliance with regulations regarding data usage such as introduced by the EU GDPR.
Secure Provenance refers to providing integrity and confidentiality guarantees to provenance information. In other words, secure provenance means to ensure that history cannot be rewritten, and users can specify who else can look into their actions on the object.
A simple method of ensuring data provenance in computing is to mark a file as read only. This allows the user to view the contents of the file, but not edit or otherwise modify it. Read only can also in some cases prevent the user from accidentally or intentionally deleting the file.

== See also ==
Art discovery
Certificate of origin
Chronological dating
Post-excavation analysis
Chain of custody
Traceability

== References ==

== Bibliography ==
Art

Feigenbaum, Gail; Reist, Inge, eds. (2012). Provenance: An Alternate History of Art. Issues & Debates. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute. ISBN 978-1606061220.
Book studies

Nazi-Era provenance research

== External links ==

The National Gallery of Art Washington gives brief provenances for most featured works
EU Provenance Project - a technology project that sought to support the electronic certification of data provenance
W3C Provenance Working Group
W3C Provenance Outreach Information