RE: Does high quality data contain traceability information?

[Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>]

A colleague told me this:

Traceability information isn't required at all stages of a data chain. Consider this: Proctor and Gamble (P&G) maintains traceability of all the stuff that goes into making a bar of soap and where all the soap that they make goes when it leaves the factory. If the bar of soap that you had in the shower this morning was defective and hurt you, then P&G can quickly figure out what is going on. When you took that bar of soap out of its wrapper, it had a list of ingredients, but it didn't document where each ingredient came from or what company P&G bought it from. However, the P&G factories keep track of that kind of information so that if it becomes an issue, the documentation is there.