Halt authority.
The power to stop the system, held by someone who can use it before the window closes. Where it sits decides whether oversight is a safeguard or a witness.
Authority and capability must coincide.
Halt authority has two parts, and both must sit in the same place. A person can be authorised to stop a system without holding the technical means to do it. A person can hold the means without the authority to use them. Either gap breaks the intervention chain at the intervene stage, the only stage that changes the outcome.
Placement is the whole question.
Authority placed high in the structure is authority placed late. Every step a signal travels upward spends part of the reversibility window on people who can escalate but not stop. Halt authority belongs at the point where deviation is first detected, with a threshold agreed in advance so the decision is not invented under pressure. A named senior individual who cannot act in time is accountability theatre: a name on a chart, not a control.
How AGDA™ evidences it.
AGDA™ tests whether halt authority is real and correctly placed: whether the person who holds it can act inside the reversibility window, and whether authority and capability coincide at the point of detection. A named owner without timely halt authority lowers the verdict, because the chain cannot complete through a stage that can only inform.
Frequently asked questions.
- What is halt authority?
- Halt authority is the authority and capability to stop a consequential system, held by someone positioned to act in time. Authority without capability, or capability without authority, does not halt anything.
- Where should halt authority sit?
- At, or close to, the point where deviation is first detected. The further halt authority sits from detection, the more of the reversibility window is spent moving a signal toward someone who can act.
- What is a witness, not a safeguard?
- A person who is informed of a failing system but cannot alter the outcome is a witness, not a safeguard. Naming an accountable individual without giving them halt authority is accountability theatre.