Chain of custody is a legal concept that refers to the chronological documentation or paper trail, showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of physical or electronic evidence. Maintaining the chain of custody is vital to ensure that the evidence can be trusted and is admissible in a court of law. If the chain of custody is broken or cannot be proven, the integrity of the evidence may be questioned, potentially rendering it inadmissible. Legal hold is a process that preserves all forms of relevant information when litigation is reasonably anticipated, which differs from ensuring the evidence admissibility. Both acquisition and reporting are steps within the digital forensics process, but they do not serve to maintain the integrity of the evidence through documentation like chain of custody does.