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- ; Data format: Data must be stored in a format which can be meaningfully accessed now and in the future.
; Technology reliance: If data requires a special program to view it, say, as an image, then software must also be available to both interpret the basic data file and also render it appropriately. In some cases, this might also require special hardware.
; Archival strategy: Data must remain available in the long term.
: At present, a growing problem is the time taken to reproduce an archive, for instance following a hardware or system upgrade. Since the sheer volume of archive data continues to grow, new hardware is always required to maintain the archive and so regular migration of data to a new system must be performed on a regular basis. The time taken to migrate data is starting to approach the frequency of system upgrade, such that archive transfer will become a continuous, never-ending process.
; Digital rights management: Maintaining digital information in an accurate and accessible format over an extended retention period also must address the requirements of the authors' digital rights.
: In many cases, the data may include proprietary information that should not be accessible to all, but only to a defined group of users who understand or have legally agreed to only utilize the information in limited ways so as to protect the proprietary rights of the original authoring team. Maintaining this requirement over decades can be a challenge that requires processes and tools to ensure total compliance.
; Reproducibility: Digital information must be able to be reproduced as originally intended or available.
: This is significant especially where the original data was produced on technology at a lower level than currently possible. For example, archivists try to maintain the distinction between listening to a gramophone record played on a gramophone as opposed to a digitally cleaned version of the same recording through a modern hi-fi system. (en)
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