REAV

Glossary

Audit trail

also: audit log

A chronological record of who did what, when, and to which record - kept so that it can be checked later and not quietly altered.

An audit trail answers questions after the fact. Who changed this device record, when, and what did it say before. It is distinct from ordinary logging in one respect: it is written to be read by someone who was not there and may not trust the person who was.

Two properties make it worth anything. Completeness, meaning every change of consequence is captured rather than only the ones an application chose to log. And tamper-evidence, meaning an alteration after the fact can be detected - commonly by chaining entries so each one carries a fingerprint of the previous entry, so removing or editing one breaks the chain.

Segregation of duties sits alongside it. A trail showing that the same person raised, approved and closed an action records the fact but does not fix the weakness.

For ITAD operators the audit trail is not a quality nicety. It is the mechanism behind chain of custody and behind every erasure certificate, because the claim being made to a customer is precisely that nothing untracked happened to their equipment.

Traceability filed against the device serial number

Related terms

  • Chain of custody The unbroken, documented record of who held a device, when, and what was done to it, from collection to final disposition.
  • Erasure certificate The auditable record proving that all data on a specific device was destroyed, by a named method, at a known date.
  • ISO 9001 The international standard that sets out what a quality management system has to contain, and the one most industrial customers ask their suppliers to be certified against.
  • Management review The periodic review in which top management looks at whether the quality system is still working, using a defined list of inputs, and decides what changes.

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