Behind your audit trail sits one ordered record. We add an entry each time something compliance-relevant happens in your account. That includes notices published, consents given and withdrawn, documents received and every view and download of a document by your team. It also includes deletions, rights requests and answers, corrections, exports, breach incidents and sign-ins. We write each entry in the same step as the action it records.
An entry holds the type of event, who did it, the time and references to the things it concerns. Who did it is you, a teammate, your client or the system. For a document, the entry holds the document's SHA-256 fingerprint. An entry never holds a document, a written answer, or your client's name, phone or email. Names on screen are looked up when you open the page. Text you type to record a decision, such as the name of a law or your reason for declining a request, is part of the entry.
Every entry carries the SHA-256 fingerprint of its own contents and the fingerprint of the entry before it. Change one entry and its fingerprint changes, so the next entry no longer matches. Remove one and the numbering has a gap. The database refuses any change or deletion of an entry.
Your account's entries also carry a second link, to the previous entry of your account alone. That is why your evidence export can be checked on its own, without any other firm's entries.
Once a day, when your account has a new entry, we publish the fingerprint of your latest entry to storage that cannot be rewritten. That storage is S3 Object Lock in compliance mode, in Mumbai. These are the daily anchors. A history rewritten after the event would no longer match them.
The record outlives the data. When a document is deleted, its key and its file go and the entries stay. They show the fingerprint, the size, the dates and who acted. That is how you can show a client or an auditor that a deletion happened on time without keeping the document.
You can check the record without us. Your evidence export holds your entries and your anchors. You can verify it on your own computer.
For example
Amaltas Deshmukh & Co sends Anita Deshpande a request on 1 July 2027. Anita agrees and sends her documents the same day. The record holds her consent with the notice version and the SHA-256 fingerprint of each document. She withdraws her consent on 1 September 2027 and her documents are deleted. The record then holds the withdrawal and the deletion with the same fingerprints. Her documents are gone, and the entries that show what was received, agreed and deleted remain.