Legal Archiving & Digital Evidence Preservation
Preserve digital evidence with court-admissible integrity. AmberProof provides legal-grade archiving with SHA-256 cryptographic hashing, server-verified timestamps, and an unbroken chain of custody from capture to courtroom.
What is Legal Archiving?
Legal archiving is the systematic process of capturing, preserving, and authenticating digital content so that it can serve as admissible evidence in legal proceedings. Unlike ordinary backups or casual screenshots, legal archiving demands rigorous standards of evidence integrity, including cryptographic hashing, independent timestamps, and an unbroken chain of custody that can withstand judicial scrutiny.
In today's digital landscape, critical evidence increasingly exists online: websites, social media posts, online advertisements, regulatory filings, and corporate disclosures. This digital evidence is inherently ephemeral. Web pages change without notice, social media posts are deleted, and online content is routinely modified. Without proper digital evidence preservation, legally significant information can disappear before it ever reaches a courtroom.
The chain of custody is the foundational principle of legal archiving. It establishes an unbroken, documented record of who captured the evidence, when it was captured, how it was stored, and whether it has remained unaltered since preservation. Courts require this documentation to authenticate digital evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence, particularly Rules 901(b)(9) and 902(14), which govern the authentication of digital records.
AmberProof was purpose-built for legal archiving and digital evidence preservation. Every capture is automatically hashed using the SHA-256 algorithm, stamped with a server-verified timestamp, and stored in an append-only archive that prevents modification or deletion. This approach meets the admissibility requirements that courts demand, giving legal professionals confidence that their digital evidence will hold up under challenge.
Evidence Integrity Features
AmberProof provides a comprehensive suite of legal archiving features designed to establish and maintain evidence integrity from the moment of capture through courtroom presentation.
SHA-256 Cryptographic Hashing
Every captured web page, document, and digital record is immediately hashed using the SHA-256 algorithm. This cryptographic fingerprint ensures that any alteration to the archived content, no matter how minor, is instantly detectable. Courts recognize SHA-256 hashing as a reliable method of establishing evidence integrity, making your legal archives tamper-evident from the moment of capture.
Server-Verified Timestamps
Each legal archive entry receives a precise, server-verified timestamp that documents the exact date and time of capture. These timestamps are generated independently of the user's local system, eliminating potential disputes about when evidence was collected. Server-verified timestamps are critical for establishing timelines in litigation and meeting evidence preservation deadlines.
Append-Only Storage
AmberProof's append-only storage architecture ensures that once digital evidence is captured, it can never be modified or deleted. This write-once, read-many approach mirrors the requirements of legal hold obligations and provides an immutable audit trail. Every version of every archived record is permanently preserved, supporting comprehensive evidence production during discovery.
Full HTML Preservation
Beyond visual screenshots, AmberProof preserves the complete HTML source code of every archived web page. Full HTML preservation captures embedded metadata, hidden elements, and structured data that may be relevant to legal proceedings. This comprehensive approach to digital evidence preservation ensures no potentially relevant information is lost during the archiving process.
High-Resolution Screenshots
Every legal archive includes a pixel-perfect, high-resolution screenshot that faithfully reproduces the visual appearance of the original content at the time of capture. These screenshots serve as accessible visual evidence that judges, juries, and opposing counsel can readily understand, complementing the technical cryptographic proof with clear documentary evidence.
Metadata Capture
AmberProof automatically captures and preserves critical metadata associated with each archived page, including HTTP headers, response codes, SSL certificate details, DNS records, and page load information. This metadata provides additional layers of authentication and context that strengthen the evidentiary value of your legal archives in court proceedings.
Legal Archiving Across the Litigation Lifecycle
From the moment a litigation hold is issued through trial and beyond, AmberProof's legal archiving platform supports every phase of the litigation process with defensible digital evidence preservation.
Pre-Litigation Preservation
When the duty to preserve arises, organizations must act swiftly to prevent spoliation of evidence. AmberProof enables immediate, comprehensive legal archiving of web-based evidence the moment a litigation hold is issued. Capture and preserve websites, social media posts, online advertisements, and digital content before it changes or disappears. Our automated scheduling ensures continuous preservation without manual intervention, reducing the risk of inadvertent destruction that can lead to adverse inference sanctions.
Discovery & Evidence Production
During the discovery phase, legal teams must identify, collect, and produce relevant digital evidence in a defensible manner. AmberProof streamlines eDiscovery workflows by maintaining organized, searchable legal archives with complete chain of custody documentation. Export court-ready evidence packages that include SHA-256 hash verification, timestamped captures, and detailed audit trails. Our evidence production tools support standard legal formats and include the metadata necessary to authenticate digital evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence.
Trial Preparation
Preparing digital evidence for trial requires meticulous documentation of authenticity and provenance. AmberProof's legal archiving platform generates professional evidence reports that demonstrate an unbroken chain of custody from capture to courtroom. Each report includes cryptographic verification details, visual comparisons showing changes over time, and comprehensive capture logs. These materials help legal teams lay the proper evidentiary foundation under Rules 901 and 902, streamlining the authentication process during trial proceedings.
Post-Trial & Compliance
Legal obligations do not end when a trial concludes. Post-trial preservation requirements, regulatory retention mandates, and ongoing compliance obligations demand reliable long-term legal archiving. AmberProof's append-only storage architecture and immutable audit trails ensure that archived digital evidence remains intact and accessible for years after initial capture. Whether you are managing post-judgment monitoring, regulatory record-keeping, or corporate governance documentation, our platform provides the evidence integrity guarantees that sustained legal and compliance obligations require.
Who Uses Legal Archiving?
Legal archiving and digital evidence preservation serve professionals across the legal and compliance landscape who need defensible, court-admissible records of online content.
Litigation Attorneys
Trial lawyers and litigators rely on AmberProof to preserve web-based evidence before it vanishes. From capturing opposing party website statements to preserving social media posts relevant to personal injury, employment, and intellectual property cases, legal archiving with AmberProof gives you court-admissible digital evidence with cryptographic proof of authenticity.
Corporate Counsel
In-house legal teams use AmberProof to manage litigation holds, monitor regulatory websites, and maintain defensible archives of corporate digital assets. Our legal archiving platform helps corporate counsel meet preservation obligations across multiple matters while maintaining detailed audit trails for governance and compliance reporting.
Paralegals & Legal Assistants
Legal support professionals use AmberProof to efficiently capture and organize digital evidence without specialized technical training. Our intuitive interface streamlines evidence preservation workflows, allowing paralegals to set up automated monitoring schedules, generate evidence reports, and manage large-scale legal archiving projects with confidence.
Compliance Officers
Compliance professionals depend on AmberProof for continuous monitoring of regulatory websites, competitor disclosures, and internal web properties. Automated legal archiving ensures that every change is captured and preserved, providing documented evidence of compliance efforts and creating defensible records when regulators come calling.
Government Agencies
Federal, state, and local government agencies use AmberProof for public records preservation, FOIA compliance, and regulatory enforcement. Our legal archiving platform captures web-based evidence with the authentication standards required for administrative proceedings, supporting transparency and accountability in government operations.
Evidence Chain of Custody
An unbroken chain of custody is the cornerstone of admissible digital evidence. AmberProof maintains a six-step chain of custody process that documents every aspect of evidence handling from initial capture through final export for legal proceedings.
Capture
The user initiates a capture by submitting a URL. AmberProof's servers fetch the target page, rendering a full high-resolution screenshot and saving the complete HTML source. The capture is performed from our controlled server infrastructure, ensuring independent verification of content existence at the specified time.
Hash
Immediately upon capture, the screenshot, HTML content, and associated metadata are processed through the SHA-256 cryptographic hashing algorithm. The resulting hash serves as a unique digital fingerprint, ensuring that any subsequent modification, no matter how minor, would produce a completely different hash value.
Timestamp
A precise, server-verified timestamp is recorded alongside the cryptographic hash. This timestamp is generated by AmberProof's servers, independent of the user's local clock, providing an authoritative record of when the evidence was captured and sealed.
Store
The archived evidence, its hash, and its timestamp are written to AmberProof's append-only storage infrastructure. Once stored, the record cannot be modified, overwritten, or deleted. This immutable storage model ensures the integrity of the evidence chain throughout its entire retention period.
Verify
At any time, users or third parties can verify the integrity of an archived record by recomputing the SHA-256 hash and comparing it against the stored value. A matching hash provides cryptographic proof that the evidence has not been tampered with since the moment of capture.
Export
When evidence is needed for legal proceedings, AmberProof generates comprehensive evidence packages that include the original capture, its cryptographic hash, the server-verified timestamp, a complete audit log, and a professional evidence report suitable for court submission.
Related Solutions
Legal archiving is part of AmberProof's comprehensive digital evidence platform. Explore our other solutions for eDiscovery, web archiving, social media preservation, and compliance.
eDiscovery Software
Automated evidence collection and court-ready report generation
Web Archiving
Capture and preserve web pages with cryptographic integrity
Social Media Archiving
Preserve social media evidence before it disappears
Compliance Monitoring
Automated compliance documentation and regulatory monitoring
Preserve Your Digital
Evidence Today
Join litigation attorneys, corporate counsel, and compliance officers who trust AmberProof for court-admissible legal archiving, digital evidence preservation, and defensible chain of custody documentation.
No credit card required. 14-day free trial on all plans.