Glossary entry

Prospective Auditability

Glossary entry in Ethotechnic capabilities (what systems must be able to do). Definitions, checks, and evidence for Prospective Auditability.

Quick takeaways

Designing a system so that the questions an audit will ask can be answered later, by recording evidence, authority, and reasoning at the time of each decision rather than recons…

Definition

Designing a system so that the questions an audit will ask can be answered later, by recording evidence, authority, and reasoning at the time of each decision rather than reconstructing them afterwards. It is decided at build time and cannot be retrofitted onto decisions already made.

It matters because retrospective audits mostly discover that the record does not exist. Prospective auditability is what makes a consequential decision reviewable at all, and it is why a policy record is written before it is needed rather than assembled during an inquiry.

Visibility

Scale: Organizational · Phases: Design, Audit · Measurability: Fully measurable · Maturity: Active research

Scope
C. Ethotechnic capabilities (what systems must be able to do). Design requirements that keep people safe when systems scale.
Genealogy
Inverts the audit relationship: instead of auditing what was kept, the system keeps what will be audited.

Adjacent terms

Consequential Decision Policy Record Ethotechnic Audit Harm Visibility

Related concepts

Also tagged: Visibility

Rubber-Stamp Review Stoppability Reversibility Fair Burden Distribution Contestability Explainability for Accountability

References

Copy citation (APA/BibTeX)

Cite this glossary entry Formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS

Version

v1.4.0

Last updated

Sep 18, 2026

DOI

Pending Zenodo deposit

APA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. (2026). Prospective Auditability. Ethotechnics glossary. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/prospective-auditability

MLA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Prospective Auditability." Ethotechnics glossary, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/prospective-auditability.

Chicago

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Prospective Auditability." Ethotechnics glossary. Sep 18, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/prospective-auditability.

BibTeX

@misc{glossary_prospective-auditability,
  title={Prospective Auditability},
  author={Ethotechnics Institute Research Team},
  year={2026},
  howpublished={Ethotechnics glossary},
  url={https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/prospective-auditability},
  version={v1.4.0}
}

RIS

TY  - WEB
TI  - Prospective Auditability
AU  - Ethotechnics Institute Research Team
PY  - 2026
UR  - https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/prospective-auditability
ER  -

Scholarly metadata

Authorship

Contact: research@ethotechnics.org

Publication details

  • Published: Dec 3, 2025
  • Last updated: Sep 18, 2026
  • Version: v1.4.0
  • DOI: Pending Zenodo deposit

License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Credit Ethotechnics Institute, include the term title + version, and link to the glossary permalink.

Archive: Wayback Machine history

Changelog

  • v1.7.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Non-Finality, Consequential Contradiction, and The Excluded Case, and generalized the falsified denominator into the falsified ledger — completing the five concerns and the fallibilist ground they stand on.
  • v1.6.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Human Non-Substitutability, Safe Incompleteness, Anti-Conversion Rights, Abstention, Constitutional Debt, Discretion Migration, and Corrigibility Rent — the person-side principles, the three abstentions, and the rent concept.
  • v1.5.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Exception Absorption, Exception Learning, Case Corrigibility, Structural Corrigibility, Institutional Learning, Corrective Debt, and the Workaround Presumption, formalizing the historical turn: reading institutions through their failure trajectories rather than their stated controls.
  • v1.4.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Residual Complexity, Complexity Displacement, Falsified Denominator, Closure Without Remainder, Constitutional Governance, and Post-Optimization Rigor, embedding the foundational contention of burden redistribution.
  • v1.3.0 · 2026-09-11 — Added Attestation, Liability Record, Carve-Out, Delegation Chain, Composed Latency, and Silent-Harm Discovery, each bound to the standard clause that requires it.
  • v1.2.0 · 2026-09-08 — Added The Non-Conversion Principle, Exit Cost, and Jurisdictional Path Dependence, each linked to the theory essay that argues for it.
  • v1.1.0 · 2026-01-09 — Expanded scholarly metadata, operational tests, and provenance notes.
  • v1.0.0 · 2025-12-03 — Initial glossary release with stable permalinks.