A witness is an entity representing a proof that a document existed at the time. It is used to comply with the law requirement of data conservation.

It may be associated to a signature request or a signature request invite to prove that the document was signed at a given time.

The witness itself doesn’t include the signature request or the signature request invite, but it is identified by the hash of the message it represents. This hash is replicated across multiple providers to ensure its integrity:

  • To the Witness Protocol to replicate across multiple immutable ledgers (for free).
  • To a Trust Provider either individually or using a Merkle Tree to group multiple witnesses into a single certification (both consume credits).

A witness is an entity representing a proof that a document existed at the time. It is used to comply with the law requirement of data conservation.

algorithm
enum<string>
required

The algorithm used for hashing the document.

Available options:
SHA256
createdAt
any
required

A date-time string at UTC, such as 2007-12-03T10:15:30Z, compliant with the date-time format outlined in section 5.6 of the RFC 3339 profile of the ISO 8601 standard for representation of dates and times using the Gregorian calendar.

hash
any
required

Hash of the document to witness.

id
any
required

A field whose value conforms with the standard mongodb object ID as described here: https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/method/ObjectId/#ObjectId. Example: 5e5677d71bdc2ae76344968c

organization
object
required

Organization that created the witness.

updatedAt
any
required

A date-time string at UTC, such as 2007-12-03T10:15:30Z, compliant with the date-time format outlined in section 5.6 of the RFC 3339 profile of the ISO 8601 standard for representation of dates and times using the Gregorian calendar.

claimed
boolean

If the witness has been claimed by the initial owner.

claiming
object

Information required to claim a document in the Endorser contract. It is only present if the witness is processed and restricted to the initial owner.

endorsable
object
initialOwner
object

Subject designed as the first in the endorsement chain. Only a member of the operating organization can set this field. Once set, our on-chain relayer will submit a proof of endorsement to the Witness contract so that the corresponding token can be minted by the user later on the application.

merkleized
object

Combined merkleized conservation strategy.

nom151
object

Individual NOM151 conservation strategy.

signatureRequest
object

Signature Request the witness is associated with. May not be present if the witness was via the API.

timestampedAt
any

Earliest date when the hash was witnessed by any strategy. Unspecified if the witness is not processed.

witnessCo
object

Witness conservation strategy.