Integrity

Evidence envelopes are signed at emission. Integrity verification ensures that:

• The envelope's contents have not been altered after emission.
• The envelope was emitted by a known signing identity.
• The envelope's parent (for amended envelopes) is correctly chained.

How integrity is checked

The signing hash is computed over a canonical serialisation of the envelope's content. A verifier re-computes the hash, checks the signature against the issuer's public key, and verifies the parent chain when present.

The Explorer does not perform integrity verification itself — that is the job of downstream evidence-store consumers. The Explorer trusts the store to surface only valid envelopes.

When integrity matters

• Long-lived audit reviews (regulatory enquiries, post-incident analysis).
• Replays of decision history.
• Cross-region replication, where envelopes need to be verified before they are accepted.