The term anachronism is used for something misplaced in time. An example is classical paintings where a biblical event is shown with people in clothes from the time when the painting was done.
In data quality lingo such a flaw will be categorized as lack of timeliness.
The most frequent example of lack of timeliness, or should we say example of anachronism, in data management today is having an old postal address attached to a party master data entity. A remedy for avoiding this kind of anachronism is explained in the post The Relocation Event.
In a recent blog post called 3-2-1 Start Measuring Data Quality by Janani Dumbleton of Experian QAS the timeliness dimension in data quality is examined along with five other important dimensions of data quality. As said herein an impact of anachronism could be:
“Not being aware of a change in address could result in confidential information being delivered to the wrong recipient. “
Hope you got it.
Liliendahl on Data Quality 