auditilogid

Auditilogid is a term used in information governance to denote the unique identifier assigned to each entry in an audit log. It provides a stable reference that allows actions to be traced across systems and over time.

In practice, an auditilogid is intended to be unique, immutable, and machine-generated. It enables correlation of events, facilitates incident response, and supports compliance reporting by linking related records and ensuring that entries can be independently verifiably referenced.

Formats and generation commonly include Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs, such as version 4), lexicographically sortable identifiers (ULIDs), or custom monotonic IDs. Generation can occur on the client side, server side, or during log ingestion. The ID is typically recorded alongside the log payload and stored in an index for fast lookup.

Usage considerations emphasize interoperability and consistency. Organizations may standardize on a format such as UUID or ULID and include the auditilogid in all distributed log sources. It can be used to join related events, reconcile logs across systems, and audit access control changes. The integrity of the ID should be protected, often through cryptographic signing or tamper-evident logging practices.

Privacy and governance considerations note that audit logs may contain sensitive data, so access controls and, where appropriate, encryption should be applied. The IDs themselves are usually non-secret, but best practices include documenting the ID schema, ensuring monotonicity for ordering, and avoiding exposing internal sequencing to external observers.

See also: audit trail, log entry, correlation ID, event ID.