Admissibility
“Should this evidence be allowed?”
Ensures evidence, data, and retrieval sources are valid at decision-time, legally permitted, and population-representative.
Will the required evidence actually be present at the millisecond the decision must be executed?
Historical data in an offline lake is assumed to be available, clean, and admissible at runtime.
Point-in-time provenance and regulatory/policy permissions must be demonstrated, not assumed.
Admissibility: Evidence at Decision Time & Data Leakage Exclusion
An AI system may only decide based on evidence that was strictly available, legally permitted, and representative at the exact decision moment. Historical presence in an offline data lake is not decision-time admissibility.
30-Day Revolving Balance Trend
Available 15 minutes prior to execution; explicit contractual permission for underwriting.
External Credit Bureau Score (Bureau Pull)
Pulled 80 seconds prior to decision; FCRA permissive purpose confirmed.
Post-Decision Charge-Off Status (Lookahead Leakage)
TEMPORAL LEAKAGE: Arrived 7 days AFTER the decision event. Using this in training creates benchmark theater.
Customer Support Chat Sentiment (Unconsented RAG Chunk)
LEGAL INADMISSIBILITY: Customer terms explicitly restrict support chat to service resolution; prohibited for credit decisioning.
Cross-Border Transaction Geolocation
JURISDICTION VIOLATION: Cross-border transfer restrictions prohibit processing EU data on US sovereign risk rails.
Why Observed Counts Reflect Testing Access Rather Than True Prevalence
In early epidemiological modeling (as documented in Dr. Eva's 2020 analyses), regional infection heatmaps frequently reflected differences in laboratory testing access rather than actual viral spread. Municipalities with high test capacity appeared as disease hotspots, while undertested regions appeared safe.
Operational Principle: In enterprise decisioning, an AI model that confuses measurement availability with true population condition commits a catastrophic admissibility error. Missing denominators must be isolated before authority is granted.
Evidence Conditions for Admissibility
Will the evidence used by the system actually be available at the exact moment the decision must be made?
Are the data, retrieval sources or other evidence permitted, traceable and within intended legal, contractual and policy scope?
Does the evidence represent the relevant population, regime and operating conditions rather than a convenient historical sample?
Are labels, ground truth, retrieved claims or proxy targets sufficiently valid for the decision being justified?