Digital Evidence is Becoming a Board-Level Risk

Most organisations are investing heavily in digital tools to strengthen resilience.

Not just for productivity, but for crisis response, operational coordination, and executive decision-making under pressure. Teams, Slack, WhatsApp groups, cloud dashboards, shared documents, incident platforms, and now AI-enabled reporting tools are becoming the default operating environment when disruption occurs.

This shift is logical. Digital platforms enable speed, reach and real-time collaboration across multiple sites, business units and stakeholders.

But there is a strategic governance issue emerging that many executive teams have not yet fully confronted: crisis response is becoming digitally enabled, but not digitally governed.

In many organisations, the technology has moved faster than the frameworks that ensure accountability.

Policies are vague. Roles are unclear. Evidence retention is inconsistent. Decision-making is distributed across channels. Action logs are treated as optional. AI outputs are being introduced without controls around traceability or verification.

As a result, the organisation may respond quickly but still lose control of the one thing that matters most after the incident is over: the integrity of its decisions and evidence trail.

Speed without structure creates exposure

When disruption hits, organisations move fast. Crisis teams activate. Executives assemble. Messages surge. Decisions are made in real time.

But across many sectors, Sention is seeing the same behaviours repeat:

• Multiple channels are created at once.
• Key approvals happen verbally and are not recorded.
• Action logs are started, then abandoned.
• Critical updates are buried in chat threads.
• Files are duplicated, overwritten, or saved in personal drives.
• Different teams hold different versions of “what’s happening”.

None of this is due to poor intent. It happens because people default to whatever is fastest. And increasingly, AI tools are now being used to draft situation reports, summarise meetings, and generate executive updates.

Without governance, this introduces a serious integrity risk: organisations lose clarity between fact, assumption, and generated content.

The real risk is not the incident. It is the loss of decision integrity.

After a major event, organisations are rarely judged on how busy they were. They are judged on governance.

Regulators, insurers, boards, and legal teams will ask:

• What did leadership know, and when?
• Who authorised the decision?
• What evidence supported the decision?
• What controls were implemented?
• Was escalation timely and appropriate?
• Can you prove your timeline?

If the organisation cannot produce a defensible record, the response becomes vulnerable to challenge even if the operational effort was strong.

This is now a financial and reputational risk

Weak digital evidence increases the likelihood of:

• Claims disputes and delayed payouts.
• Inability to substantiate business interruption losses.
• Regulatory findings of poor governance.
• Litigation exposure and costly discovery.
• Inconsistent narratives that amplify reputational damage.
• Board accountability risk when decisions cannot be evidenced.

Digital tools are not the problem. Governance is.

The strongest organisations treat crisis communication platforms as controlled environments.

They establish clear frameworks before disruption occurs, one channel as the source of truth, decision logs that capture rationale, disciplined version control, evidence retention rules, and clear separation between verified facts and AI-generated summaries.

This isn’t bureaucracy. It is decision assurance.

‍Leadership takeaway

Executives should not ask, “Can we respond to an incident?”

They should ask: “Can we demonstrate disciplined decision-making when scrutiny follows?”

Because in today’s environment, organisations are adapting to disruption, but typically lack the ability to prove governance, accountability, and control. When this happens, financial and reputational damage escalates.