Which statement correctly identifies technical metadata?

• A. Business metadata
• B. Operational metadata
• C. Compliance metadata
• D. Technical metadata

Answer: (D)

Metadata types by focus: technical metadata covers the data’s technical characteristics—how data is defined, stored, and moved. It includes the schema and structure (such as table and column data types, lengths, and formats), encoding, file formats, storage location, and data lineage or provenance showing how data flows from source to destination. This is distinct from business metadata, which captures meaning, definitions, and how data supports business processes; operational metadata, which tracks processing details like ETL jobs and performance; and compliance metadata, which covers regulatory, retention, and privacy requirements. Because the statement points to these technical attributes of the data itself, it correctly identifies technical metadata.