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unstructured data

Data can be designated as unstructured or structured data for classification within an organization. The term unstructured data refers to any data that has no identifiable structure. For example, images, videos, email, documents and text are all considered to be unstructured data within a dataset.

While each individual document may contain its own specific structure or formatting that based on the software program used to create the data, unstructured data may also be considered “loosely structured data” because the data sources do have a structure but all data within a dataset will not contain the same structure.

This is in contrast to a database, for example, which is a common example of "structured" data.

Contrast with structured data.
See also big data.



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