Summary 293 database, annual sales and profit information, a purchase made by someone--the list goes on. This is the surface evidence. In other words, this is the evidence that may be the most important, but it is also the easiest to get if the only thing you need to do is to request that the data be produced and printed out as a report or screenshot. The underlying data, or metadata, is also important. Metadata from a database standpoint is the information about the data records that may be of significant interest. For instance, many database applications record information about changes to records in the database, but this information is not shown to the user as it is only saved for audit purposes and troubleshooting. Metadata includes information about a record or transaction such as the date and time stamp when the record was changed and the name of the user who changed the record. Depending on the sophistication of the database application and regulatory and other requirements, these audit transactions may show historical record change information as well. However, bear in mind that even if the audit trail contains this metadata for more than just the last change, it will probably not contain the contents of the