audit trail

noun

Definition of audit trail

: a record of a sequence of events (such as actions performed by a computer) from which a history may be reconstructed

Examples of audit trail in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail. — Zachary Halaschak, Washington Examiner, "Michigan judge allows release of report from Dominion voting equipment forensic audit in Antrim County," 14 Dec. 2020 The tool, revealed Tuesday, lets the public review a list of all the ways a photograph has been altered, essentially showing consumers an audit trail that will help vouch for an image’s validity. — Jonathan Vanian, Fortune, "How Adobe plans to fight the scourge of deepfakes," 20 Oct. 2020 All the questions and answers are recorded, creating an audit trail that allows regulators and courts to inspect how the data has been used and to penalize misuse. — Alex Ryan, Quartz, "Can smart cities help their residents without hurting their privacy?," 27 Nov. 2019 In one instance, the FDA claims, technicians had disabled the audit trail, run 80 covert tests, then turned the trail back on two days later. — Katherine Eban, WIRED, "8 Ways Overseas Drug Manufacturers Dupe the FDA," 7 Aug. 2019 At the plant’s quality-control laboratory, an investigator searched the grid of computer audit trails, using his rudimentary college Mandarin. — Katherine Eban, WIRED, "8 Ways Overseas Drug Manufacturers Dupe the FDA," 7 Aug. 2019 The audit trail is years behind schedule and recently launched its first phase while still missing some key functions. — Dave Michaels, WSJ, "Machine Trading Needs More Oversight, Departing SEC Official Says," 21 Dec. 2018 And the whole system will need to provide an audit trail of user actions—including who initially marked the classification level, where, and when, as well as classification upgrades and downgrades. — Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica, "DOD seeks classification “Clippy” to help classify data, control access," 10 July 2018 Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina all rely exclusively on electronic voting machines without a paper audit trail. — Derek Hawkins, Washington Post, "The Cybersecurity 202: How Colorado became the safest state to cast a vote," 10 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'audit trail.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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“Audit trail.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/audit%20trail. Accessed 2 Mar. 2021.

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