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White paperMichael Clark
Evidence That Survives Ten Years
Defending an AI decision years later means reproducing four things: what was decided, on what basis, by which version of the system and under which version of the rule. The revised Product Liability Directive can reach a decision for ten years or more, its disclosure and presumption rules give the state of the record consequences, and the AI Act's logging duties do not produce this record. The recommended controls are a tightly scoped, tamper-evident decision record captured at the moment of decision, retention and supplier terms set against the liability window, and an annual reconstruction test.
Key findings
- Product liability can reach a decision for ten years, and for twenty-five where the latency of a personal injury prevented proceedings within ten.
- Defending a decision means reproducing four things, and records practice is designed to keep only the first: what was decided.
- On our reading, a missing record does not itself raise a presumption of defect, but leaves the organisation least able to meet a disclosure order or rebut a presumption raised on other grounds.
In the paper
- The window is longer than retention policy assumes
- The state of the record shapes the presumptions
- The disclosure objection
- Four things must be reproducible
- Integrity and custody over a decade
- Test it once a year
- The cost recurs
Michael Clark
Chief Executive Officer, Standard Intelligence
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