Within ACID principles, what does the term 'Isolation' refer to?

Within the ACID principles, 'Isolation' specifically addresses the ability of transactions to operate independently of one another. This means that the execution of one transaction should not be affected by the execution of another transaction, even if they are happening concurrently. Isolation ensures that transactions are secure from interference, providing a consistent view of the database which can prevent issues such as lost updates, dirty reads, and non-repeatable reads.

By maintaining this level of separation, the potential for conflicts between transactions is minimized, allowing multiple transactions to proceed without impacting the overall integrity of the data. This is crucial in multi-user environments where many transactions occur simultaneously.

The other options touch on related concepts but do not capture the essence of Isolation as defined in database transactions. Data Protection is more about safeguarding data from unauthorized access. Transaction Segmentation does not directly relate to how transactions are isolated from each other. Record Integrity pertains to maintaining accuracy and consistency of individual data entries rather than the operational context of concurrent transactions.