GCTS Record-Access Ontology

The record-access layer is the strongest differentiating component of GCTS. Standard verification systems often classify a claim against retrieved evidence. GCTS also models the records that should exist, might exist, were requested, were not produced, were produced late, were sealed, were destroyed, or should never have been expected.

Record-Access State Object

A record-access state is:

$$ r_k = (id_k, type_k, owner_k, controller_k, duty_k, expected_k, access_k, production_k, request_k, time_k, q_k) $$

Field	Meaning
id_k	Stable record-access identifier
type_k	Record type, such as report, log, transcript, notification, policy record, metadata, or audit entry
owner_k	Institution or actor expected to own or retain the record
controller_k	Actor with practical control over access or production
duty_k	Legal, policy, role, instrumentation, or ordinary-practice generation duty
expected_k	Expected observability or generation likelihood
access_k	Access-state classification
production_k	Production history or response state
request_k	Request path, search path, or collection path
time_k	Time interval in which the record would matter
q_k	Confidence in the classification

Access States

State	Definition	Ranking effect
available	Record is present and resolvable	Can support, refute, or qualify claims directly
inaccessible	Record may exist outside the current access path	Creates record contingency and wider uncertainty
sealed	Record exists or plausibly exists under restricted access	Blocks strict conclusions dependent on the record
withheld	Non-production is plausibly controlled by an actor with access and incentive	Creates competing missingness worlds and may affect world energy
destroyed	Record existed or was expected and is no longer available	Creates retention or spoliation hypotheses when duty and control are established
not_generated	Record should not be expected under the relevant duty or practice	Reduces absence penalty and can refute assumptions about expected records
unknown	Current evidence cannot classify the access state	Widens uncertainty and prevents strong absence inference
produced_late	Record appeared after initial non-production	Supports timelines about production behavior and access friction
partial	Some responsive material exists but expected fields or documents are missing	Creates partial support and unresolved contingencies
contradicted	Produced record conflicts with other evidence or expected metadata	Increases contradiction residual and alternative-world branching
unavailable_at_time_t	Record exists now or later but was unavailable at the relevant decision time	Prevents later evidence from being treated as runtime evidence for the original actor

Production States

State	Definition
produced	Responsive record produced
partial_production	Some responsive material produced
no_response	No institutional response to request
nonresponsive_response	Response received but did not answer the record question
refused	Production denied or refused
claimed_none	Institution states no responsive record exists
lost	Record claimed lost
destroyed	Record claimed destroyed
late_production	Record produced after delay
metadata_only	Metadata or administrative material produced without the responsive record

Generation Duty

A record expectation is stronger when several duty signals align:

Duty source	Examples
Legal duty	reporting law, retention law, mandatory reporting, discovery obligation
Policy duty	school policy, HR policy, medical protocol, agency rule
Role duty	officer, supervisor, teacher, clinician, custodian, compliance officer
Instrumentation duty	logs, cameras, timestamps, access-control systems
Ordinary-practice duty	records typically created in comparable cases
No duty	record should not be expected

Absence Discipline

Absence can affect a claim only after the system has modeled:

1. Whether a record-generation duty existed.
2. Whether the event should have been observable.
3. Who owned or controlled the record.
4. Whether the access path was legitimate or ordinary.
5. What production response occurred.
6. Whether the record’s absence is better explained by benign missingness, access limits, non-generation, destruction, sealing, withholding, or unknown causes.

Only evidence of absence directly penalizes a claim as absent. Other states usually create uncertainty, record contingency, or competing worlds.

Output Requirement

Every record-contingent claim should state:

• which records matter;
• why those records were expected or not expected;
• who owned or controlled them;
• what access state is currently assigned;
• how confident the system is in that classification;
• whether strict proof depends on the record;
• whether likely-truth ranking depends on the record;
• what record production would raise, lower, or resolve the claim status.