Updated 6 November 2026
Putting events in order from dated evidence
Date precision, agreed chronologies, inquiry chronologies, electronic timestamps and the legal clocks that start from a specific moment.
Data tools
- Date notation
A sourced list of notations and terms for exact, approximate, uncertain, partial and open-ended dates and times, with the standard each comes from.
- Chronology rules
A sourced directory of court and inquiry rules on preparing, agreeing and filing chronologies, by jurisdiction and body.
- Legal clocks
A sourced directory of legal deadlines that run from a trigger moment, from GDPR 72-hour breach notice to limitation periods, with the trigger for each.
- Comment periods
Recent US proposed rules with the publication date, the comment closing date and the number of days in between, from the Federal Register API.
Dating evidence
- Chain of custody explained
What a chain of custody record shows, how hashes and preserved file times protect digital evidence, and what NIST and IETF guidance says about each step.
- Date precision and uncertainty
How the Extended Date/Time Format and RFC 3339 record approximate, uncertain, partial and open-ended dates, with examples from the specifications.
- Electronic timestamps explained
What file times, log times and trusted time-stamp tokens record, why they can be wrong, and what NIST, IETF and CERT-In guidance says about them.
Chronologies
- Agreed chronologies in litigation
How courts in England and Wales, New Zealand, Qatar and Australia ask parties to prepare an agreed chronology, and how disputed dates are shown.
- How to put events in order
A step-by-step method for building a chronology from dated evidence, drawn from court guidance, forensic standards and legislation records.
- Public inquiry chronologies explained
How public inquiries gather dated evidence, publish it, set out the order of events in reports, and why their findings are not rulings on liability.
Legal clocks
- Limitation periods compared across jurisdictions
How limitation periods work as legal clocks, when they start to run, and the basic periods for contract and tort claims in the UK, US, Singapore and India.
- The GDPR 72-hour breach clock explained
When the GDPR 72-hour breach clock starts, what awareness means, what the notice must hold, and how other breach deadlines around the world compare.