Dirty data is a term used by IT practitioners when creating data capture forms. Dirty data is data that is misleading, incorrect or without generalized formatting, contains spelling or punctuation errors, (see: transcription error), data that is input in a wrong field or duplicate data. It is commonly prevented using input masks or validation rules; however, completely removing the dirty data from a database is impossible in some cases. For example, if a user deliberately inserts misleading or fictional data such as personal information, which seems real, it may not be picked up by an administrator due to its appearance. Duplicate data may be caused by accidentally double clicking of a "submit" button on forms, or by revisiting a page which has "expired" and refreshing it. See also · Signal noise References · [LINK: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/dirty_data.html] Webopedia