Data in use

It has been suggested that this article be merged into Computer memory. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2025.

Data in use is an information technology term referring to active data which is stored in a non-persistent digital state or volatile memory, typically in computer random-access memory (RAM), CPU caches, or CPU registers.^[1]

Scranton, PA data scientist Daniel Allen in 1996 proposed data in use as a complement to the terms data in transit and data at rest, which together define the three states of digital data.