What happens to a record between arrival and export?
At each stage, it picks up a mark that can be checked later. The signature of its source says who sent it. Before it joins the rest, it is tested against what that source should deliver. It is sealed when it is filed in a case, and the case leaves as one sealed package that the recipient can check. If anything changes on the way, it shows at the stage where it happened.
When a record is challenged, by a defence lawyer, an auditor or a supervisor, the first questions are rarely about what it says. They are about where it came from, and whether anyone has touched it since. A file that cannot answer those two questions is weaker than it looks, however convincing its content.
Two texts, the same two questions
In the United States, federal courts apply the Federal Rules of Evidence. They ask whoever presents an item to show “that the item is what the proponent claims it is”: that it really is what they say it is. In the European Union, the eIDAS Regulation, which sets the rules for electronic signatures and seals, defines an electronic seal as data attached to other data “to ensure the latter’s origin and integrity”. One text is about evidence in court, the other about electronic trust. Yet they ask the same two things: who it comes from, and whether it is still what it was.
We think a platform should answer those questions at every stage, not only at the end, when it may be too late to find out what happened in between.
Four checks on the way through
In Datasight, a record meets four checks on its way from the source to the recipient. Each one leaves a trace that can be checked afterwards, without taking our word for it.
On arrival, every batch of data carries the signature of the source that sent it. For any record, you can tell which source it came from.
Before a batch joins the rest, it is tested against what that source should send: the expected format, the expected fields, values within the expected limits. Analysts start from data that has already been inspected, instead of finding a broken column in the middle of a case.
When a document is filed in a case, it is sealed at that moment. From then on, nobody can change it without the change showing.
Change one figure
InteractiveBank statement, page 3
- Account
- Ending 4417
- 12 September
- Transfer out, 9,800 EUR
- 14 September
- Transfer out, 9,750 EUR
Try itChange one figure in the filed document and watch its seal.
The document was sealed when it was filed in the case. The seal matches it exactly.
Green: the document is exactly as it was filed. Red: it was changed afterwards.
Illustrative. A fictional document and case.
When a case leaves the platform, it goes as a single sealed package. Whoever receives it can check that it is intact. How the platform logs each of these steps is the subject of question 5.
What a seal cannot tell you
A seal proves that a document has not changed since it was sealed. It does not prove that the document was true when it arrived. A forged invoice, sealed with care, is still a forged invoice.
That is why the earlier checks matter, and why none of them replaces judgement. The signature says who sent a record. The check on arrival says it has the shape expected from its source. Whether its content is accurate is still a question for the people working on the case. What the platform gives them is a record whose history they can rely on.
How to check it
- Take any record in a case and ask which source sent it, and whether its batch passed the check on arrival.
- Pick a document filed in a case and ask what would show if someone changed it after it was filed.
- Ask how the recipient of an exported case confirms that it arrived intact.
Sources
- Federal Rules of Evidence (United States), Rule 901(a), “Authenticating or Identifying Evidence”. Cornell Law School
- Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS): Article 3, point (25). EUR-Lex