the.com/chain of custody

means The unbroken, documented record of who collected, handled, transferred, and stored a piece of evidence from the moment it's gathered until it's presented in court.

from A legal-procedural term, not a folk coinage — it emerged from forensic and law-enforcement practice as courts demanded proof that evidence hadn't been swapped, contaminated, or tampered with between crime scene and courtroom. 'Chain' captures the linked sequence of custodians; 'custody' is simply the legal term for having control or possession of something. The phrase hardened into formal use through 20th-century evidentiary law, especially as forensic science and lab testing made the handling of physical samples a matter of life-or-death precision — one broken link and the evidence can be thrown out entirely.