Nobody has to take your word for it.
Authority Trail records who was allowed to do what, and when.
Every action in a business rests on a permission. A person, a system or an AI agent was allowed to do it. Authority Trail writes each permission somewhere neither party controls. Any past action can then be checked against the permission in force at that moment.
In plain terms
Identity says who. Authority says what they may do.
Most businesses already know which person or agent did something. Identity systems answer that question well, inside the boundary they control.
Authority Trail answers a different question: what was this actor allowed to do, who granted it, when was it taken away, and can somebody outside your company confirm all three.
The problem
Permissions change. The record of them should not.
You take a permission away at 14:02. Did the actor use it at 14:01? Your own system says no. That is the one account the other side will not accept, because you wrote it.
Permissions also travel. One actor hands part of its authority to another, which hands it to a third. When three parties each hold their own account of who allowed what, every dispute becomes an exchange of documents between people who wrote their own evidence.
What the record holds
Every permission, from grant to revocation.
Revoking a permission changes what the actor can do next. It never rewrites what the actor was allowed to do before. Both facts stay on record.
- The grant
Who gave the permission, to whom, and for what.
- The limit
How far it goes: an amount, a scope, a time window.
- The delegation
When one actor passes part of its permission to another, and how far down the chain it went.
- The revocation
When the permission was taken away, to the second.
- The check
For any past action: the permission in force at that moment, and whether the action fitted inside it.
What changes
The same event, with and without an independent record.
| When this happens | With your own account | With Authority Trail |
|---|---|---|
| A regulator examines a decision | Your account of your own system | A record anyone can check, held by neither side |
| A counterparty disputes an action | "Our system says we were right" | A timestamped record held outside both parties |
| An actor exceeds its remit | You investigate your own files | The grant, the limit and the breach are all visible to anyone |
| Somebody inside edits the history | Possible for anyone with enough access | Nobody can rewrite it, including DOVU |
| Several parties disagree | One company's account, disputed by the rest | One shared record all of them can read |
Public record, private data
The record is public. Your data is not.
What goes on the public ledger is narrow: that a permission was granted, its limits, who held it, when it was revoked, and the result of the check when an actor used it.
The documents, the customer data and the commercial terms stay inside your systems. The record shows that a permission existed at a given time and that an action fitted inside it. It does not reveal what the action was about.
Durability
If DOVU disappears, your record does not.
A record you must keep for seven years cannot depend on a software contract lasting seven years.
Authority Trail writes to Hedera, a public ledger. Every permission and every check stays readable through any public copy of that ledger, timestamps intact, whether or not DOVU is still operating. Our tools make the record convenient to write and to read. They are not what makes it true.
With Flow
Flow checks Authority Trail before every step.
Flow holds the process: the steps, the role that takes each one, and the record of each step as it happens. Before any step is recorded, Flow checks Authority Trail for the permission behind it. Together they answer who did what, and who allowed it.
Next step
What can't you prove today?
Thirty minutes with our CEO. Bring the problem.