Finding out that your preserved digital assets are irrecoverable at the time of need is a nightmare scenario that all archivists fear.
Some in the industry refer to digital asset degradation as a ‘silent fire’.
As with a real fire, there are proactive measures and insurances to manage the risk.
One such approach is to apply preservation grade fixity checks.
Digital collections face risks like bit rot, media failure, file system corruption, and accidental changes during handling.
These issues aren’t typically immediate and are not always visible, so in combination with other validations we use cryptographic fingerprints such as MD5 checksums to verify file integrity on ingest and beyond.
Not all fixity checks are created equal! They can often be superficial and opaque.
Full preservation grade fixity involves a lifecycle approach:
- Establishing checksums at ingest
- Validating them after migrations and transformations
- Logging every check as an auditable event for compliance
- Triggering recovery workflows if something goes wrong
- Combining Fixity with other safeguards like virus scanning and format validation
In short, Fixity is a continuous process, not a one-off task. It underpins authenticity, compliance, and operational confidence in digital preservation.
The OAIS framework breaks this down into three main areas:
- Ingest: When files first enter the system, we verify against a media hash file, or create MD5 checksums and record them in metadata. This gives us a baseline for future integrity checks.
- Archival Storage: Every time files are moved, migrated, compressed, or decrypted, we validate Fixity before and after. If something looks wrong, we quarantine the file and restore it from a safe copy.
- Access: When files are restored for reuse, we validate Fixity again and share that information with the recipient to maintain trust.
Beyond the OAIS fixity events, we also create an access copy in an enduring file format; this validates that a submitted file can be read correctly and converted before it is preserved.
At Preferred Media, we’ve built Fixity verification into our preservation platform to make integrity checks seamless and reliable – even in air-gapped environments. Here’s what makes our approach stand out:
Key Features
- Continuous verification: Every file gets an MD5 fingerprint at ingest
- Automated checks: Scheduled or on-demand integrity validation
- Real-time alerts: Immediate notifications if something changes
- Transparent audit trails: Full logs for compliance and peace of mind
- Flexible scheduling: Continuous, periodic, or policy-driven checks
Benefits
- Confidence that your files remain authentic
- Compliance with digital preservation standards
- Scalable across large collections and storage tiers
- Proactive management with alerts and reporting
Fixity isn’t just a technical detail – it’s the foundation of trust in digital preservation. Without it, you can’t be sure your files are the same as the originals. Preferred Media makes this process simple, automated, and reliable so you can focus on what matters: your content.
As a core control within digital preservation fixity should be explicit and inspectable. We put it front and centre in the Preferred Connection platform so that every fixity event is transparent, and verifiable.
Does your preservation platform provide a complete transparent fixity check record for all 27 possible integrity affecting events? If not, contact us for more information about the preservation grade fixity assurances built in to Preferred Media’s service.
