Auditing.

Audit functionality provides read-only access for administrators in every room within a customer’s deployment. When enabled, it is visible to all end users to ensure transparency of the auditing process.

It can be configured to suit an organization’s specific requirements. For instance direct messages between two individuals can be excluded from auditing so that only group conversations are visible.

This type of functionality is often used by organizations for business and compliance requirements such as financial institutions, healthcare organizations, manufacturing companies, IT services, government agencies and utilities providers.

End-to-end encrypted messages sent in rooms where auditing is set up are automatically backed up (with their encryption keys) and can be restored via a secure backup located on the homeserver. Administrators can export data and store it locally, integrate it with a legacy archive system or upload it to an AWS Simple Storage Service (a.k.a. an ‘S3 bucket’) or equivalent.

Doing this effectively creates a ‘master user’ that has all of the encryption keys and is necessary for capturing an official record of discussions – as required in many regulated industries.