SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PRESERVING AND MANAGING DOCUMENT CHAIN OF CUSTODY

A computerized system for preserving and managing an audit trail associated with printing of a sensitive document, the system including: a printing device disposed on a local area network; a network-connected appliance disposed on the local area network and communicatively coupled to the printing device, the network-connected appliance configured to receive a request from a client system for printing of the sensitive document, to log information related to the received printing request and to release the sensitive document to the printing device for printing; and a server disposed outside of the local area network and configured to receive from the network-connected appliance the logged information related to the printing request and to aggregate and store the logged information on a storage device for subsequent search and retrieval. The computerized system additionally implements the enforcement side of improper document handling and enables identifications of the user(s) who mishandled the specific document(s).