Western Governors University (WGU) ITEC2104 C175 Data Management - Foundations Practice Exam

Referential integrity is a critical concept in database management that ensures the relationships between tables remain consistent. When referential integrity is enforced, any foreign key in a table must either match a primary key in another table or be null. This maintains the logical connections between tables, preventing orphan records, which occur when a foreign key references a primary key that has been deleted or does not exist. Ensuring this consistency is vital for relational databases as it preserves the accuracy and reliability of the data being managed. The other options do not accurately describe referential integrity: modifying the primary key, eliminating duplicates, or ensuring matching data types are managed through different mechanisms and do not directly pertain to the concept of relationships in databases.