Data Chain of Custody

From satellite to courtroom — tamper-proof

Every piece of evidence follows an unbroken, cryptographically secured chain — from the moment a satellite captures your land to the document your lawyer presents in court.

4 Steps. Zero Gaps.

Our methodology ensures no link in the evidence chain can be questioned, tampered with, or dismissed.

01

Source Acquisition

Government & Commercial Satellites

Raw imagery sourced from government and commercial satellites with GPS-timestamped metadata and orbital telemetry. Every pixel is traceable to its origin pass, ensuring provenance from the moment of capture.

  • Official government satellite data sources
  • High-resolution commercial satellite imagery
  • GPS-timestamped metadata for every frame
  • Orbital telemetry records for source verification
Feeds into next step
02

Tamper-Proof Ingestion

SHA-256 Cryptographic Hashing

Every image is cryptographically hashed at the moment of ingestion. Any alteration — even a single pixel — breaks the hash chain, ensuring zero tampering from source to storage.

  • SHA-256 hash generated at point of ingestion
  • Immutable hash chain from source to storage
  • Any alteration instantly detectable
  • Cryptographic proof of data integrity
Feeds into next step
03

AI Change Detection

ShieldNex Proprietary Engine

Temporal comparison algorithms identify construction activity, boundary shifts, and land-use changes with geo-referenced precision. Our proprietary engine flags anomalies before they become irreversible.

  • Temporal comparison across satellite passes
  • Construction and boundary shift detection
  • Land-use change classification
  • Geo-referenced precision mapping
Feeds into next step
04

Court-Ready Evidence Pack

IT Act 2000 & Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 aligned

Timestamped before/after imagery, change reports, and hash certificates are packaged to support the electronic-record requirements of Indian law. Admissibility and weight are ultimately decided by the court, subject to a Section 63 certificate and expert testimony.

  • Timestamped before/after satellite imagery
  • Detailed change detection reports
  • SHA-256 hash certificates for each document
  • Structured to support a Section 63 (BSA 2023) certificate
Data sources & cadence

Which satellites we use, and how often

We combine open baseline imagery with commercial high-resolution tasking, so we can look at your plot on the schedule and resolution the case actually needs.

Open baseline · routine monitoring

Continuous, open-data foundation

  • ESA Sentinel-2

    10 m multispectral optical imagery, roughly every 5 days at the equator. Primary source for routine change detection.

  • ESA Sentinel-1 (SAR)

    C-band synthetic-aperture radar that sees through cloud cover, revisit every 6–12 days. Our monsoon fallback when optical imagery is clouded out.

  • USGS / NASA Landsat 8 & 9

    30 m multispectral optical, 16-day revisit, with a deep historical archive stretching back over a decade for before-and-after baselining.

Commercial high-resolution · on demand

Sub-metre tasking when the case warrants it

  • ISRO Cartosat-3

    Planned procurement

    Procured through NSIL and NRSC. Up to ~25 cm panchromatic and ~1 m multispectral, sub-5-day revisit. Reserved for cases where the plot or dispute requires high-resolution imagery.

Additional commercial constellations may be added under case agreements where evidentiary needs justify the tasking cost.

Cadence and alerts — what the 72-hour promise actually means

For routine watch, Sentinel-2 gives us usable optical imagery roughly every 3–5 days over India, cloud cover permitting. When optical imagery is clouded out (typically during monsoon or heavy cover), Sentinel-1 SAR carries the check. WhatsApp alerts are dispatched within 72 hours of a usable capture — not 72 hours of the incident on the ground. Continuous real-time video surveillance is not offered by any Earth observation system today and is not part of what we provide.

Built on India's Geospatial Framework

ShieldNex works with satellite imagery under India's Guidelines for Acquiring and Producing Geospatial Data and Geospatial Data Services (2021), which liberalised the use of such data for Indian entities. Where any airborne or drone capture is used, those specific operations are conducted in line with the applicable DGCA drone rules.

Built for Legal Admissibility

Our evidence packs are designed to support the requirements for electronic records under current Indian law. Final admissibility and evidentiary weight are determined by the court.

IT Act 2000

Recognises electronic records and secures data integrity with cryptographic hashing

Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023

Electronic records under Sections 61–63, supported by a Section 63 certificate (replaced the Evidence Act, 1872 from 1 July 2024)

Geospatial Guidelines 2021

Satellite data used within India's liberalised geospatial data framework

Integrity Guarantee

Our chain of custody is designed so that no single party — including ShieldNex — can alter evidence without detection. The SHA-256 hash chain creates a mathematical guarantee: if even one bit changes, the entire chain breaks. This is the same standard used in banking and national security systems.

Try it yourself

See the first step in action

Everything above starts with one thing: knowing exactly where your boundary is. Walk the edge of your plot with your phone and we map the polygon live, then hand you the enclosed area. No GPS to hand right now? Load the example plot and explore the whole flow on any device.

TrialFree, runs in your browser, nothing stored

Live GPS capture needs location permission and an HTTPS connection. The example plot works without either.