Why revision history matters
Article 12(2) of the Political Advertising Regulation (EU 2024/900) requires that any changes to a published transparency notice are documented. This is not a minor administrative detail -- it is a core transparency requirement. The regulation assumes that the public, journalists, and regulators need to see not just the current state of a notice, but what information was disclosed at every point in time.
The Taurus implements this requirement through an automatic, immutable revision system that creates a complete audit trail for every published notice.
How revisions work
Every time you publish or republish a transparency notice, The Taurus creates an immutable snapshot called a revision. This snapshot captures the complete notice data exactly as it exists at the moment of publication -- every field, every value, every detail.
Revisions are numbered sequentially. The first time you publish a notice, revision 1 is created. If you later edit the notice and republish, revision 2 is created. Each subsequent republication adds another numbered revision to the history.
These snapshots are immutable. Once a revision is created, it cannot be modified, overwritten, or deleted by anyone -- not by you, not by your team members, not by platform administrators. This immutability is what makes the revision history a reliable audit trail.
The republication workflow
When you need to update a published notice, the process is designed to ensure proper documentation:
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Edit the notice. Open the published notice and make your changes through the wizard. You can modify any field that needs updating -- financial amounts, sponsor details, targeting information, publication dates, or any other data.
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Provide a change note. Before you can republish, the platform requires you to enter a change note. This is a brief explanation of what you changed and why. For example: "Updated payment amount from EUR 5,000 to EUR 7,200 to reflect final invoice" or "Corrected sponsor address after office relocation."
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Republish. When you confirm the republication, a new revision is created containing the updated data along with your change note and a timestamp.
The change note requirement serves a practical purpose. When someone reviews the revision history months or years later, the notes provide context for each change. Without them, a reviewer would see that numbers changed but not understand the reason.
What the public sees
The public notice viewer at ttad.eu always displays the most current version of a published transparency notice. This ensures that anyone scanning a QR code or looking up a notice sees the latest, most accurate information.
However, the revision history is also accessible from the public viewer. Anyone -- a citizen, a journalist, a regulator, a competing campaign -- can view the full list of revisions for any published notice. For each revision, they can see:
- The revision number
- The date and time it was created
- The change note (for revisions after the initial publication)
- The complete notice data as it existed at that point
This means the public can compare the current version with any previous revision. If a sponsor's name was changed, if a payment amount was updated, or if targeting criteria were modified after publication, all of that is visible and traceable.
Why immutability matters for compliance
The immutability of revisions is not just a technical feature -- it is what gives the audit trail its legal value. If revisions could be edited or deleted after the fact, the entire system would be unreliable. Any party under scrutiny could simply alter the historical record to present a more favorable picture.
Because revisions on The Taurus cannot be changed once created, they serve as trustworthy evidence of what was disclosed and when. This is valuable in several contexts:
Regulatory inquiries. If a national authority investigates your political advertising under the regulation, the revision history provides a clear, timestamped record of every disclosure you made. You can demonstrate exactly when information was published and how it evolved over time.
Public accountability. Opposition parties, journalists, and civil society organizations may review your transparency notices as part of their oversight role. The revision history shows them that you updated information proactively and documented your reasons, rather than quietly altering records.
Internal documentation. For larger organizations managing many notices, the revision history serves as an internal record of who changed what and when. This is particularly useful during audits or when onboarding new team members who need to understand the history of a campaign's compliance record.
Practical tips for working with revisions
Write clear change notes. A note like "Updated" tells a reviewer nothing. A note like "Corrected payer name from 'Campaign Fund' to 'Citizens for Progress Campaign Fund' to match official registration" tells the full story. Take the extra few seconds to be specific.
Review before publishing. Because revisions cannot be undone, it is worth double-checking your data before you hit publish -- especially on the first publication. While you can always republish with corrections, a clean initial revision looks better in the audit trail.
Do not delay corrections. If you discover an error in a published notice, correct it promptly and republish with an honest change note. The regulation values transparency, and a notice with a correction documented in the revision history is far better than a notice with outdated or incorrect information that was never updated.
Understand that revision history is permanent. Even after a notice is archived, its revision history remains accessible for the full five-year retention period. Plan your disclosures accordingly and treat every publication as a permanent record.