Provenance
The origin and chain of ownership/custody of records — who created them and how they have been maintained over time — a core principle for establishing authenticity.
Provenance refers to the origin of records and the history of their ownership, custody, and management over time. In archival practice it is a foundational principle: records are kept and described according to their origin (the office or person that created them) and their original order, because that context is essential to understanding and trusting them.
Provenance is closely related to chain of custody — together they establish that records are authentic and have not been tampered with. Knowing who created a record, in what context, and how it has been handled since is what lets an archives or a court rely on it as genuine evidence. Preserving provenance information (much of it captured as metadata) is therefore central to both records management and long-term preservation.