# Audit Trails

> Understand the chronological evidence WPsigner records for document and signer events, and how to review or export it.

edition: both
Edition: Lite + Pro
AI note: This page applies to Lite and Pro. Call out Lite limits (PDF only, max 2 signers, email OTP, local timestamp) when they apply. Do not invent Pro-only features.
HTML: https://docs.wpsigner.com/digital-identity/audit-trails/
Markdown: https://docs.wpsigner.com/md/digital-identity/audit-trails.md
Source file: digital-identity/audit-trails.md

---

An audit trail is a chronological record of document and signer events. It can provide important evidence about identity, intent, timing, access, and integrity, but it does not automatically make a transaction enforceable or admissible.

## What is an Audit Trail?

An audit trail is a chronological record that captures:

- **Who** - The identity of each person involved
- **What** - Every action taken on the document
- **When** - Exact timestamps of each action
- **Where** - IP addresses and geographic information
- **How** - Device and browser information

This creates an unbroken chain of evidence from document creation to completion.

---

## Why Audit Trails Are Essential

### Legal Foundation

Audit trails provide the legal foundation for electronic signatures under major regulations:

| Regulation | Audit Trail Requirement |
|------------|------------------------|
| **ESIGN Act** | Record of transaction |
| **UETA** | Attribution and intent |
| **eIDAS** | Identification and authentication |
| **HIPAA** | Access logs for PHI |
| **SOX** | Financial record integrity |

### Court Admissibility

In legal proceedings, audit trails provide:

| Evidence Type | What It Proves |
|--------------|----------------|
| **Identity** | Who signed (email, IP, device) |
| **Intent** | Deliberate actions were taken |
| **Timing** | When each action occurred |
| **Integrity** | Document wasn't altered |
| **Delivery** | Notification was sent |

### Non-Repudiation

Non-repudiation means signers cannot deny they signed. Audit trails establish this through:

1. **Unique signing link** - Sent only to signer's email
2. **Access logging** - When link was accessed
3. **Device fingerprint** - Browser and device info
4. **IP geolocation** - Physical location approximation
5. **Action sequence** - Deliberate steps to complete signing

---

## What WPsigner Captures

### Document Events

| Event | Captured Data |
|-------|---------------|
| **Created** | Creator user ID, timestamp, document hash |
| **Sent** | Send time, recipient emails |
| **Viewed** | View time, viewer identity, IP address |
| **Downloaded** | Download time, downloader, IP |
| **Voided** | Void time, reason, user who voided |
| **Expired** | Expiration timestamp |

### Signer Events

| Event | Captured Data |
|-------|---------------|
| **Email Delivered** | Delivery timestamp, email service response |
| **Link Accessed** | Access time, IP address, user agent |
| **Document Viewed** | View duration, pages viewed |
| **Fields Completed** | Each field with timestamp |
| **Signature Drawn** | Stroke data, completion time |
| **Submitted** | Final submission timestamp |
| **Declined** | Decline reason, timestamp |

### Technical Metadata

| Data Point | Description | Purpose |
|------------|-------------|---------|
| **IP Address** | IPv4/IPv6 address | Geographic attribution |
| **User Agent** | Browser and OS | Device identification |
| **Geolocation** | Approximate location | Location verification |
| **Session ID** | Unique session identifier | Action correlation |
| **Timezone** | Signer's timezone | Time context |

---

## Certificate of Completion

### What Is It?

The Certificate of Completion is a human-readable summary of the audit trail, automatically appended to the final signed PDF.

### Why It's Important

- **Self-contained** - All evidence in one document
- **Readable** - Non-technical parties can understand
- **Comprehensive** - Full history at a glance
- **Portable** - Travels with the document forever

### Certificate Contents

```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
         CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Document: Service Agreement 2026
Document ID: 7f8c9d2e-1234-5678-abcd-ef1234567890
Status: COMPLETED

DOCUMENT HASH (SHA-256):
a1b2c3d4e5f6789...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
                  SIGNERS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Signer 1: John Smith (john@company.com)
• Role: Buyer
• Viewed: Jan 15, 2026 10:32:15 AM UTC
• Signed: Jan 15, 2026 10:35:42 AM UTC
• IP Address: 192.168.1.100
• Device: Chrome 120 on Windows 11

Signer 2: Jane Doe (jane@vendor.com)
• Role: Seller
• Viewed: Jan 15, 2026 2:15:22 PM UTC
• Signed: Jan 15, 2026 2:18:03 PM UTC
• IP Address: 10.0.0.50
• Device: Safari 17 on macOS Sonoma

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
                  TIMELINE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Jan 14, 2026 3:00:00 PM - Document created
Jan 14, 2026 3:05:12 PM - Sent for signing
Jan 15, 2026 10:32:15 AM - Viewed by John Smith
Jan 15, 2026 10:35:42 AM - Signed by John Smith
Jan 15, 2026 2:15:22 PM - Viewed by Jane Doe
Jan 15, 2026 2:18:03 PM - Signed by Jane Doe
Jan 15, 2026 2:18:03 PM - Document completed

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Powered by WPsigner | Verify at: wpsigner.com/verify
```

### QR Code Verification

Each certificate includes a QR code that links to an online verification page, allowing anyone to:

- Confirm document authenticity
- View the complete audit trail
- Verify timestamp validity
- Download the original signed PDF

---

## Viewing Audit Trails

### In WordPress Admin

1. Go to **WPsigner → Documents**
2. Click on any document
3. Click the **Audit Trail** tab
4. View complete history with all events

### In the Downloaded PDF

1. Open the signed PDF
2. Scroll to the last page(s)
3. View the Certificate of Completion
4. Scan QR code for online verification

### Via REST API

```http
GET /wp-json/insigner/v1/documents/{id}/audit
```

Returns JSON with complete audit history:

```json
{
  "document_id": 123,
  "events": [
    {
      "type": "created",
      "timestamp": "2026-01-14T15:00:00Z",
      "user_id": 1,
      "ip_address": "192.168.1.1"
    },
    {
      "type": "viewed",
      "timestamp": "2026-01-15T10:32:15Z",
      "signer_id": 1,
      "ip_address": "192.168.1.100",
      "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0..."
    }
  ]
}
```

---

## Legal Best Practices

### Document Retention

| Industry | Retention Period | Regulation |
|----------|-----------------|------------|
| General business | 7 years | General practice |
| Healthcare | 6-10 years | HIPAA |
| Financial | 7 years | SOX |
| Employment | Duration + 7 years | Various |
| Government | Varies | Specific regulations |

### Backup Strategy

Protect your audit trails:

1. **Regular backups** - Daily database backups
2. **Off-site storage** - Store copies externally
3. **Encryption** - Encrypt backup files
4. **Testing** - Verify restore capability
5. **Retention policy** - Define how long to keep

### Access Control

Limit who can view audit trails:

| Role | Access Level |
|------|-------------|
| **WordPress Administrator / WPsigner Admin** | Full access to all audits |
| **Manager** | Audit trails for all documents |
| **Viewer** | Read-only audit access for all documents; sensitive signer details remain permission-scoped |
| **Sender** | Audit trails for documents they created |

See [Team Roles & Permissions](/core-features/team-roles/) for the full document and signer-detail access matrix.

---

## Audit Trail Integrity

### How Integrity Is Ensured

WPsigner protects audit trail integrity through:

| Protection | Method |
|------------|--------|
| **Immutability** | Events are append-only, never modified |
| **Timestamps** | Server-based, not client-provided |
| **Hashing** | SHA-256 hash of event chain |
| **Database** | Structured storage with constraints |
| **Signing** | Digital signature on completion |

### Tamper Detection

If someone attempts to modify an audit trail:

1. Hash chain breaks
2. Digital signature becomes invalid
3. Adobe Reader shows "Document has been modified"
4. Certificate of Completion doesn't match data

---

## Compliance & Regulations

### ESIGN Act Requirements

The ESIGN Act requires:
- ✅ Record of transaction process
- ✅ Consent to electronic records
- ✅ Ability to retain records

**WPsigner provides**: Complete audit trails fulfill all requirements.

### HIPAA Audit Requirements

For healthcare documents:
- ✅ Access logs (who viewed what, when)
- ✅ User identification
- ✅ Automatic logoff (session management)

**WPsigner provides**: Full access logging with IP and device info.

### SOX Compliance

For financial documents:
- ✅ Document integrity verification
- ✅ Access controls
- ✅ Audit trail of all modifications

**WPsigner provides**: Immutable audit trails with hash verification.

---

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How long are audit trails stored?

By default, audit trails are stored indefinitely in your WordPress database. Define a retention policy based on your industry requirements.

### Can audit trails be exported?

Yes. Export as:
- JSON via REST API
- Part of signed PDF (Certificate of Completion)
- CSV export from admin panel

### What if a signer disputes their signature?

The audit trail provides evidence of:
- Email delivery to their address
- Link accessed from specific IP
- Device information matching their typical device
- Specific actions taken (drawing signature, clicking submit)

This evidence typically resolves disputes definitively.

### Are IP addresses accurate?

IP addresses are captured accurately, but:
- VPNs may mask true location
- Corporate networks may show company IP
- Mobile networks may show carrier IP

The IP combined with other factors (email, device) establishes identity.

---

## Next Steps

- [Digital ID](/digital-identity/digital-id/) - Cryptographic signing
- [Timestamping (TSA)](/digital-identity/timestamping/) - Prove when signed
- [Compliance](/compliance/) - Regulatory requirements