Auditing AI and big data is often a challenge for many organizations. Keeping a few things in mind is critical in helping you stay in compliance. IT audits for your system are an annual event for most businesses. However, an artificial intelligence audit that maintains good governance and security remains a work in progress.
Artificial Intelligence in Internal Audit
Fortunately, many businesses already use various practices that can be applied in creating an AI auditing framework. These practices and procedures can easily be adapted for big data and AI. These additional services are helpful for companies, as many audit firms only offer limited data and AI services.
Here are a few things to consider in creating an AI data audit for your business.
Where is Your Data Coming From?
Organizations often acquire their data from performing various business functions, but they can also buy and use it from outside vendors to help with AI analytics. All of this data from external sources needs to be evaluated to ensure its trustworthiness. Verifying the quality of data is essential before you use it for analytics. Keeping track of audit data analytics from third parties needs always to occur to maximize accuracy.
How Will You Handle Data Privacy?
Creating data privacy rules for your clients is a critical component in today’s workplace. However, these regulations often get stretched if you use external business partners that don’t share your same privacy standards in handling data. Policies and procedures for maintaining data privacy need to be in placed to ensure you stay in compliance with data privacy laws regarding clients.
Do You Have Safety Procedures?
The rise of edge computing and the Internet of Things dramatically increases the contribution of unstructured data to an internal system. These devices are mobile and distributed, which means they can easily be misplaced, lost, or compromised. Your IT department needs to develop a method to track these devices while also overseeing how each one is used. These devices will need to be immediately locked down if they are reported missing.
Are Your Security Settings Up to Date?
Many IoT devices and routers include default security settings. However, these default security standards do not usually meet the IT security standards for your organization. During the installation process, your IT team needs to inspect these default security settings to ensure it matches your standards. If not, these security settings will need to be modified to meet your IT standards before the device is deployed for use.
How Accurate is Your AI System?
The algorithms are constantly changing in an AI system. Auditing AI systems regularly is essential to maintain accuracy. Not performing an AI audit can result in significant errors for your company. Constantly monitoring and making changes to your AI algorithm and data is critical in tuning this information to ensure everything works at an optimal level.
How Clean is Your Big Data?
Data cleaning is necessary, whether through data discards, normalization, or extract, transform, and load tools. Putting a system in place for this process is critical for performing a data audit. Cleaning your big data makes it possible to use it in your AI system or analytics to ensure it’s as accurate as possible.
Who is Authorized to Use Your Big Data and AI?
One way to keep your organization safe is to monitor your big data repositories and AI systems around the clock for maximum security. These monitoring services play a key role in only allowing authorized users to access this data. Performing audit data analytics is also another way to boost your internal security system.
Is Your AI System Fulfilling Its Purpose?
Looking at ways to improve your AI system is essential for the long-term success of your company. Auditing AI systems on an annual basis is a great way to identify any areas of weakness and find ways to improve. Staying proactive is an excellent way to enhance your business operations with the help of audit AI software.
Do You Have a Backup System?
Creating a disaster recovery plan is critical in limiting downtime for your business, especially if your AI system becomes inoperable. Keeping a backup system in place will allow you to handle a wide range of scenarios as it’s a good idea to train employees on how to handle these situations. Reviewing your disaster plan regularly is essential in helping you stay proactive against a variety of potential threats.
Closing Thoughts
AI and big data will continue to play an ever-increasing role in today’s workplace. Conducting a data audit on a regular basis is critical in helping your business improve. Following an AI auditing framework will allow your business to maximize uptime and ensure it’s working at an optimal level.
