Verifiable Approval Records: Minimum Contents for Standing Authority Behind Non-Person Actor Actions

Non-person actors increasingly act under authority that is granted per task, bounded in time, and backed by a human approval for higher-impact actions. Each of those approvals is a claim that an accountable person permitted a specific action. A claim of approval is not evidence of approval. This note states the minimum contents an approval record must carry so that an interviewer, an assessor, or an independent verifier can determine, after the fact and without relying on the system that produced it, who approved, whether they held the authority to approve at that moment, what they approved and until when, and which action ran under it. It states four elements, each with the test applied to it, and adds no new terms beyond approval record and verifiable, defined in §2: standing and persistent grant are used exactly as the companion deposit defines them.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-11-03
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23933520
Primary Topic
Access Control and Trust
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Verifiable Approval Records: Minimum Contents for Standing Authority Behind Non-Person Actor Actions

Cliff Singletary
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Access Control and Trust
article

Verifiable Approval Records: Minimum Contents for Standing Authority Behind Non-Person Actor Actions

Cliff Singletary
article en

Abstract

Non-person actors increasingly act under authority that is granted per task, bounded in time, and backed by a human approval for higher-impact actions. Each of those approvals is a claim that an accountable person permitted a specific action. A claim of approval is not evidence of approval. This note states the minimum contents an approval record must carry so that an interviewer, an assessor, or an independent verifier can determine, after the fact and without relying on the system that produced it, who approved, whether they held the authority to approve at that moment, what they approved and until when, and which action ran under it. It states four elements, each with the test applied to it, and adds no new terms beyond approval record and verifiable, defined in §2: standing and persistent grant are used exactly as the companion deposit defines them.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Openalex Percentile: Top 8%
Access Control and Trust
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