Decision Logs, Audit Trails and Provenance: What’s the Difference?
At a Glance
Logs, audit trails and decision provenance are often treated as equivalent, but they serve different purposes and preserve different kinds of information.
Confusing these concepts can lead to gaps when decisions are later examined or challenged.
This page explains the distinctions and why the artefacts are not interchangeable.
Why the Distinction Matters
When organisations are asked to explain or justify decisions, they often rely on existing operational records. These records may be valuable, but they are not all designed to support explanation of judgement.
Treating logs or audit trails as substitutes for decision provenance risks overstating what those artefacts can reasonably evidence.
Related: Why Decision Reconstruction Fails.
Logs
Logs are records of system or process events.
They typically capture actions taken by systems or users, often at a granular level, and are primarily used for monitoring, debugging and operational analysis.
Logs record what happened. They do not preserve decision context, discretionary judgement or rationale.
Audit Trails
Audit trails are structured records intended to support verification, review or compliance.
They often summarise actions, approvals or changes over time and may be designed to demonstrate adherence to defined procedures or controls.
Audit trails can show that a process was followed, but they do not necessarily preserve the context or judgement underlying individual decisions.
Decision Provenance
Decision provenance preserves the context, judgement and outcome associated with a specific decision, as they existed at the time the decision was made.
It is concerned with explanation rather than process verification. Its purpose is to support later understanding of how and why a decision was taken, not merely to show that actions occurred.
Decision provenance cannot be reliably inferred from logs or audit trails alone, even when those artefacts are comprehensive.
Summary
- Logs record events and system activity
- Audit trails support verification and review
- Decision provenance preserves decision context and judgement
Each artefact has value, but they serve different evidentiary purposes and should not be conflated.