What Makes an Audit Trail Court-Admissible?
To satisfy civil evidentiary standards in English and Welsh courts under the Civil Evidence Act 1995, an electronic signature audit trail must demonstrate who signed, when they signed, what they saw, and that the document has not been altered since execution.
If a counter-party claims in court: 'I never agreed to that clause' or 'The document was altered after I signed', a simple image of a signature on a PDF provides poor defense.
ChickenSign produces an immutable certificate of completion featuring: (1) Text Fingerprint (SHA-256 digest of original PDF), (2) Completion Fingerprint (SHA-256 digest sealing final vectors and audit trail), (3) Full timeline of events with Europe/London timestamps, and (4) IP address and browser user-agent records.
Six-Year Retention Under the Limitation Act 1980
Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 establishes a 6-year statutory time limit for bringing legal actions based on simple contracts, which is why ChickenSign retains cryptographic audit logs for 6 years.
If a client initiates a breach of contract claim five years after project delivery, having your signed agreement and certificate code safely archived ensures your business remains fully protected throughout the statutory limitation window.