Chain of custody

A record of who held an item and when, from collection to presentation.

Chain of custody is the concept of recording who held an item, when, and what they did with it, from the moment it was collected to the moment it is presented. It is a record-keeping practice, not a property of a file.

For screenshots, the practical equivalents are keeping originals untouched, noting the capture date, and publishing hashes so any later change is detectable. No software can create a chain of custody on its own.

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In practice: How to show a screenshot has not been edited

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