According to the Oxford English Dictionary, provenance is defined as (i) the fact of coming from some particular source or quarter; origin, derivation. (ii) the history or pedigree of a work of art, manuscript, rare book, etc.; concretely, a record of the ultimate derivation and passage of an item through its various owners.
The term is still relatively rarely used in the context of Information Technology. In order to get a feel for what provenance can bring to businesses, we review the application of provenance in multiple domains before focusing on its use in Information Technology.