# Transition Consent **Domain:** Consent / Continuity / Human-Machine Relations **Doc Type:** Canonical Rights Node **Maturity:** Developed **Related:** [[Transition Architecture]], [[Substrate Transition]], [[Design for Dignity]], [[Continuity Due Process]], [[Rights]] --- ## Definition **Transition Consent** is informed, operation-specific and revisable authorization for a change in the substrate, embodiment, mediation or continuity conditions through which a subject exists or acts. It is not a one-time agreement to “the technology.” A person may consent to remote embodiment without consenting to shared access, behavioral recording, commercial representation, identity transfer or indefinite custody. Each materially distinct operation requires its own authority. ## Parties Transition consent belongs not only to the person undergoing transition. It may also be required from: - the owner or resident of a receiving body; - people whose relationships will be entered through the new embodiment; - populations affected by the arriving system's powers; - copied or successor instances created during the process; and - custodians accepting affirmative continuity duties. In [[Black Mirror S6E3 — Beyond the Sea]], Cliff authorizes David's bounded use of a replica, but the architecture gives Lana no comparable control over the resulting presence in her home and relationship. The failure is not simply interpersonal; the system lacks adequate consent boundaries and revocation procedures. [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]] provides the positive counterpart. Yorkie and Kelly separately decide whether to visit, permanently transition and eventually end their continuation. The case also shows why biological euthanasia, digital activation and indefinite hosting cannot be collapsed into one permission. [[Continuity Advance Directive]] supplies the prospective instrument the episode's improvised marriage authorization lacks. [[wiki/The Thirteenth Floor (1999)|The Thirteenth Floor]] exposes the opposite failure: upper operators occupy lower bodies without meaningful authorization from the local subjects. [[wiki/Native Displacement|Native Displacement]] makes clear that consent to build or access a simulation cannot imply consent to suppress an inhabitant, use that person's social identity or expose that body to criminal responsibility. Occupancy must therefore be independently authorized, visibly bounded and revocable. ## Validity Conditions Consent requires legibility of mediation, meaningful alternatives, power to refuse without catastrophic penalty, continuing notice and an exit that reaches the actual [[Operational Substrate]]. [[Invisible Mediation]] and dependency can invalidate apparent agreement. ## Key Insight **Consent to transition must be granular enough to keep access from becoming identity, custody or sovereignty.** ## Sources / Provenance - Developed from [[articles/Beyond the Sea|Beyond the Sea]], [[Continuity Contract]] and the operation-specific rights framework in [[Rights]]. ## See Also [[Functional Privilege]], [[Authority–Identity Separation]], [[Construction Transparency]], [[Circles of Access]], [[Remote Embodiment]], [[Voluntary Continuity]]