What is a characteristic of decentralized paper records?

Decentralized paper records are often characterized by being more labour intensive to manage due to their physical nature and the processes involved in maintaining them. Each department or unit typically keeps its own set of records, which means that retrieving and consolidating information can require significant effort and time. Resources must be dedicated to organizing, storing, and searching through paper records, which can be cumbersome and inefficient, leading to increased manual handling and administrative workload.

In a decentralized system, there are also higher chances of duplication, where multiple copies of the same record may exist across various locations. This redundancy can complicate data management and require additional efforts to ensure consistency and accuracy among the records. Thus, managing these systems effectively demands more human resources and effort, driving up the labour intensity associated with handling them.

The other characteristics, such as management cost, ease, and security, are not typically associated with decentralized paper records, making labour intensity a defining characteristic of this system.