Establishing the authenticity of an electronic forms transaction record for business and legal purposes requires the creation and maintenance of data that can be used to establish an audit trail. The information that is necessary to both the audit (busine

Establishing the authenticity of an electronic forms transaction record for business and legal purposes requires the creation and maintenance of data that can be used to establish an audit trail. The information that is necessary to both the audit (business) and chain-of-custody (legal) processes includes, at a minimum, the following elements: who used the system; when they used it or instigated a transaction; what they did while using the system; and the results of the transaction. ¶ Properly implemented audit trails can establish that all pertinent information was captured at or near the time of the event, and that all procedures were followed to achieve an accurate and reliable result. In turn, this can add significant weight to establishing the authenticity of the electronic forms record for admissibility in evidence.