Compliance

Audit Trail

A chronological record of system activities that provides evidence of who did what, when, and why.

An audit trail (or audit log) is a chronological record that provides documentary evidence of the sequence of activities affecting a specific operation, procedure, or event.

Privacy and Security Use Cases

  • Access logs — who accessed what data and when
  • Change logs — what data was modified, by whom, and the before/after values
  • Authentication logs — login attempts, successful and failed
  • Consent records — when consent was given, withdrawn, or updated
  • Data subject requests — tracking fulfilment of access and erasure requests

Audit trails support the GDPR accountability principle (Article 5(2)) by providing evidence that the data controller has complied with its obligations. They are also a key component of SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance.

Related Terms

ConsentPrivacy

A freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous indication of agreement to data processing.

GDPRLegal

The General Data Protection Regulation — the EU's comprehensive data protection law, effective since May 2018.

Records of ProcessingLegal

A written record of all processing activities carried out by a data controller or processor — required under GDPR Article 30.

SOC 2Compliance

A compliance framework for service organisations based on five trust service criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.

ISO 27001Compliance

An international standard for information security management systems (ISMS) — the most widely recognised security certification.

Anonymization