Audit trail and audit log are usually used as synonyms. When they are distinguished, the audit log is the stored list of entries, and the audit trail is the sequence of entries that reconstructs one event or one asset's history.
What a DAM audit trail should record
| Event | Example question it answers |
|---|---|
| Uploads and new versions | Who replaced the product shot last Tuesday, and what did it look like before? |
| Metadata and status changes | Who approved this image for external use? |
| Downloads | Which partners downloaded the old logo after the rebrand? |
| Shares and portal access | Did the agency open the press kit link, and how many times? |
| Permission and rule changes | Who changed the access rule that exposed the pre-launch collection? |
| Rights decisions | Was the download blocked because the licence had expired? |
| Deletions and restores | Who deleted this asset, and when? |
| API calls | Which integration changed these 400 assets overnight? |
What makes an audit trail reliable
- Complete: entries are written by the system as part of each action, not by people remembering to record it.
- Attributed: each entry names an actor, whether a person, an API token or an automated process.
- Append-only: entries are added and never edited. A correction is a new entry.
- Retained for as long as audits, contracts or regulations require.
- Searchable and exportable, so an administrator can filter it and hand an extract to an auditor.
Audit trails and compliance
Security and data-protection reviews ask for evidence of who accessed what. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 lists logging as a control (Annex A 8.15), and the GDPR requires organisations to be able to demonstrate compliance (Art. 5(2)), which includes knowing where personal data such as photos of identifiable people has been shared. Licence disputes work the same way: a record of downloads and shares shows whether an image was used outside its terms.
An audit trail records who did what. Version control records what the asset was at each point. Together they reconstruct the state of the library at any past moment.
Audit trails in Freedam
Freedam keeps several logs, each for one kind of activity:
- Configuration changes: changes to access rules, roles and their permissions, user groups, watermarks, metadata fields, vocabularies, workflows and other settings are recorded with the person or assistant run that made them, the values before and after, the IP address and the time. Administrators can ask the admin assistant which settings changed since a given date.
- Rights decisions: blocked actions, acknowledgements of policy terms and downloads under a rights policy are logged with territory, channel and decision. The log can be filtered by date and decision and exported as CSV.
- Share links: each view and download through a link is logged, with the visitor's email address when the link requires one. Administrators can export share activity.
- Internal collection shares have their own log of changes.
- Asset activity: each asset shows its views, downloads and shares, and people with permission see who viewed or downloaded it. See analytics.
- Asset history: the version list shows who uploaded each version, and the history tab lists workflow status changes with who made them and why.
- API calls: every request to the public API is logged with its token, method, path, status and response time.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an audit trail and version history?
An audit trail records actions and who took them. Version history keeps earlier copies of a file. You need the audit trail to know who replaced an image, and the version history to see or restore what it replaced.
How long should audit logs be kept?
There is no single rule. Keep them at least as long as the longest licence or contract they may need to prove, and as long as any regulation in your sector requires.
Can an audit trail show who downloaded a file?
Yes, if downloads are logged per user. For share links used by people without an account, the log records each visit and download, and the visitor's email address when the link asks for it.
Related terms
Read the history of an asset
Open an asset in Nordi's library and look at its analytics, versions and history: views, downloads and shares, who uploaded each version, and each status change with who made it.
You enter Nordi’s workspace as an administrator. No card, no setup.