Information
Information allows us to expand our knowledge beyond the range of our senses. We can capture data in information, then move it about so that other people can access it at different times.
Here is a simple analogy for you.
If I take a picture of you, the photograph is information. But what you look like is data.
I can move the photo of you around, send it to other people via e-mail etc. However, I’m not actually moving you around – or what you look like. I’m simply allowing other people who can’t directly see you from where they are to know what you look like. If I lose or destroy the photo, this doesn’t change how you look.
So, in the case of the lost tax records, the CDs were information. The information was lost, but the data wasn’t. Mrs Jones still lives at 14 Whitewater road, and she was still born on 15th August 1971.