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Storing Digital Evidence That Holds Up: A Lawyer's Practical Guide
Hash chains, version history, and chain of custody — what your platform must give you for digital exhibits.
Digital exhibits — screenshots, WhatsApp logs, scanned documents — are now part of every commercial dispute. The question of whether they'll be admitted is increasingly about the chain of custody between the file and the courtroom.
Three properties of admissible digital evidence
- Hash-verifiable — the file's hash should have been recorded at receipt, immutable thereafter
- Version-tracked — every modification to the file (annotation, redaction) should be a separate versioned record
- Custody-attributed — every access to the file should be logged with user id and timestamp
AssociatesDiary stores attached exhibits with SHA-256 hashes recorded at upload, append-only access logs, and immutable version history. When opposing counsel challenges the chain of custody, the platform produces the audit trail in seconds.