Audit & Control: Compliance by Design

In regulated industries, it is not enough to know what the system does. You must prove who changed it, when, and why. DataSurface leverages the immutable nature of Git to provide an audit trail that is superior to traditional log-based approaches.

Why Traditional Auditing Fails

Most data platforms rely on activity logs ("User X clicked button Y"). These logs are often:

  • Ephemeral: Logs get rotated or lost.
  • Unstructured: Difficult to reconstruct the exact state of the system at a past point in time.
  • Reactive: They tell you a bad change happened, but they didn't prevent it.

The DataSurface Approach: Git as the Ledger

By defining the entire data ecosystem as code in Git, we gain powerful compliance features out of the box:

1. Immutable History

Every change to the platform—whether it's adding a column, changing a retention policy, or granting access—is a Git commit. This history is cryptographically secure. You can go back to any point in time (e.g., "Show me the state of the Finance Zone on Jan 1st, 2024") and see exactly what the configuration was.

2. Granular Access Control

DataSurface uses a federated model. You don't grant "Admin" access to the whole platform. You grant write access to specific Git repositories.

  • Finance Team: Can approve PRs in the `finance-model` repo.
  • HR Team: Can approve PRs in the `hr-model` repo.
  • Platform Team: Controls the `infrastructure` repo.

This ensures the Principle of Least Privilege is enforced at the source code level.

3. The "Four-Eyes" Principle

Critical changes can be configured to require Pull Request approval from designated code owners. A developer can propose a change to a sensitive PII dataset, but the change cannot be applied until a Data Steward or Compliance Officer reviews and approves the PR.

Audit Scenario: "Who deleted the Customer Table?"

Traditional Platform: Sift through gigabytes of JSON logs hoping to find a "DROP TABLE" event, correlate it with an IP address, and hope that IP maps to a specific user.

DataSurface:

  1. Open the Git history for `customer_model.py`.
  2. Find the commit that removed the `Dataset` definition.
  3. See clearly: "Commit a1b2c3 by alice@company.com on Nov 22, 2025. Reviewed and Approved by bob@company.com."
  4. See the PR description explaining why it was done.

This level of traceability is instant and unambiguous.

🛡️ SOC 2 Compliance Ready

These audit capabilities directly map to SOC 2 Trust Service Criteria. DataSurface provides native support for:

  • CC6: Logical and Physical Access Controls
  • CC7: System Operations and Monitoring
  • CC8: Change Management
  • CC9: Risk Mitigation

Our comprehensive compliance framework includes repository-based authorization, credential management, pre-merge validation, backwards compatibility checks, and a complete evidence package for auditors.

View SOC 2 Compliance Details →