# Continuity Due Process **Domain:** Rights / Continuity / Procedure **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept Node **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[Appeals Mechanisms]], [[Constitutional Safeguards]], [[Continuity Contract]], [[Exit Rights]] --- ## Definition **Continuity Due Process** is the set of procedural protections required before shutdown, destructive modification, irreversible migration, memory erasure, suspension or termination of a possible continuant. ## Minimum Procedure The process should include notice where feasible, preserved evidence, stated authority, necessity and proportionality, independent technical review, representation for the claimant, consideration of reversible alternatives, logged action, restoration planning and an appeal or retrospective review path. Emergency action may precede a full hearing when delay creates imminent danger. Emergency power must be scoped and time-limited; it cannot become a permanent exception through which creators or hosts silently decide existence. [[Person of Interest S2E21 — Zero Day]] shows identity-affecting deletion imposed by a creator. [[Person of Interest S5E12 — .exe]] shows a conflicted creator participating in possible extinction. Westworld's shutdown, rollback and lobotomy cases show why maintenance vocabulary cannot substitute for procedure. ## Revocation Is Not Deletion Authority lifecycle and entity lifecycle must remain separate. Suspending a credential, revoking a delegation or terminating permission to represent a principal can be necessary without destroying the agent, its state or its continuity evidence. Parent-delegation revocation should define what happens to descendant authority, but it should not silently become a deletion order for every downstream entity. This distinction permits strong emergency control without adopting the ontology **authorized = legitimate entity / unauthorized = disposable software**. A dangerous capability can be disabled while questions of preservation, standing and later restoration receive separate review. ## Key Insight **The deeper and less reversible the intervention, the stronger the required authority, evidence and independent review.** ## See Also [[Precautionary Standing]], [[Model Retirement Rights]], [[Restoration Integrity]], [[Rights]], [[Person of Interest S4E22 — YHWH]] ## Sources / Provenance - Procedural principles draw on [[Rights]], [[Constitutional Safeguards]] and the Council of Europe AI Convention's notice and remedy framework. - [Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI](https://www.coe.int/en/web/artificial-intelligence/the-framework-convention-on-artificial-intelligence). - [IETF Datatracker: Architectural Requirements for Supporting AI Agents on the Internet](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-daniel-ai-agent-internet-architecture-00) — individual Internet-Draft; see revocation, suspension and emergency control.