Technical audit
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Technical audit (TA) is an
audit An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...
performed by an auditor, engineer or subject-matter expert evaluates deficiencies or areas of improvement in a process, system or proposal. Technical audit covers the technical aspects of the project implemented in the organization. For this, an auditor should have a deep knowledge of development, design and security standards, user needs and ethical considerations, with latest algorithms updates.


Objectives of technical auditing

* The technical operations are being performed as per requirement. * Sound framework of control is in place to sufficiently mitigate the potential risk, with potential ethics and harm reduction as factors. * The procured technical equipment is technically suitable for the purpose. * Authority and responsibility for operating activities are assigned properly. * Information system is adequate to provide assurance of operating activities being performed properly. * If applicable, the system is updated to incorporate user values (e.g., in the case of ethical artificial intelligence algorithm auditing).


Concentration of technical auditing

# Planning and design # Procurement or purchase # Implementation # Impact of project Areas to be covered by technical audit


Benefits of technical auditing

* Improvement in
internal control Internal control, as defined by accounting and auditing, is a process for assuring of an organization's objectives in operational effectiveness and efficiency, reliable financial reporting, and compliance with laws, regulations and policies. A broad ...
systems to mitigate the potential
risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environme ...
. * Improvement in the quality of service. * Assurance of Revenue. * Transparent and cost effective procurement of
goods and services Goods are items that are usually (but not always) tangible, such as pens, physical books, salt, apples, and hats. Services are activities provided by other people, who include architects, suppliers, contractors, technologists, teachers, doc ...
. * Completion of project on time. * Reduction of project cost and annual operating cost. * Helps re-scheduling of project activities. * Performance improvement of a system. * Harm reduction and centering of system users' values.


Incorporation of users in technical auditing

While there are methods that developers and researchers can leverage to gain information for effectively auditing systems, such as the scraping approach (i.e., issuing repeated queries and observing system behavior) or
code audit A software code audit is a comprehensive analysis of source code in a programming project with the intent of discovering bugs, security breaches or violations of programming conventions. It is an integral part of the defensive programming paradig ...
s (i.e. using tests to understand what vulnerabilities may exist in the source code), it is sometimes the case that users' insight is critical to understand problems with a system (e.g., concerning the
ethics of artificial intelligence The ethics of artificial intelligence is the branch of the ethics of technology specific to artificially intelligent systems. It is sometimes divided into a concern with the moral behavior of ''humans'' as they design, make, use and treat artific ...
). As such, there are methods of soliciting (nontechnical) user perceptions and feedback to support a technical algorithm audit. For example, in noninvasive user auditing, researchers and developers may survey users in conjunction with user activity (e.g., through activity logs) to understand interactions with the system and unmet needs that could benefit from auditing. Crowdsourced or collaborative auditing is another approach, in which users are considered as testers, sometimes specifically hired to do so, to provide feedback about system design and behavior. With a trend toward user-centered, ethical systems (e.g., to avoid issues in which harm or bias may go unchecked due to lack of expertise or knowledge that only a diverse range of users can surface), incorporation of users' feedback in the auditing process is becoming increasingly common.


See also

*
Auditing An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Technical Audit Types of auditing