Audit Trail Analysis Service 2 (ATAS2) will be used by many DWP business systems for the storage of audit trail data and for making that data available for interrogation. The ATAS systems can detect sequences of events indicating suspicious activities, such as fraud or other misuse, which could lead to wrongful or inaccurate payments. ATAS can also help achieve increased accuracy levels through the detection of incorrectness, discovery of bad practices or details of claims registered i.e. number registered in a period, validation of clearance times or highlighting peaks and troughs.
When a user accesses a Departmental IT system to perform a transaction they leave a 'footprint' in the form of an electronic audit record. This reveals:
Who they are
Where they went and
What they did.
When they did it
These 'footprints' provide ATAS with an audit trail. This is an electronic record, which can be requested and interpreted by those with the knowledge to read these audit records. It should be noted that some Departmental systems provide more extensive audit feeds than others.