The auditing standards board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants on Thursday proposed an overhaul of the rules governing audit evidence for private companies to better define the role of new technologies in audits.

The organization, which sets the standards for audits of private companies in the U.S., proposed expanding the framework auditors use when gathering and assessing evidence used to form their opinions of financial statements.

Current standards focus on the accuracy and completeness of that information. But as new technologies expand auditors’ ability to gather evidence, auditors can and should view that information with a more critical lens. Under the new rules, auditors should assess the risk of bias associated with the information they use to substantiate their audit opinion and consider the authenticity of the information being gathered, the AICPA said. “The use of emerging technology—we can access information on social media, we can use big data and all of that—was not reflected in the old standard,” said Robert Dohrer, AICPA’s chief auditor. “The objective of the standard is to recognize the attributes of those expanded sources of information.” The proposal is open to a 90-day public comment period. The AICPA expects the rule to be completed by January 2020. An effective date hasn’t yet been decided. Write to Tatyana Shumsky at tatyana.shumsky@wsj.com

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