Two-Person Integrity
Updated 2026-08-11
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Two-person integrity, also called the four-eyes principle, requires a second person to independently confirm a critical action before it executes: the second key for a launch, the second signature for a payment, the second reviewer for a merge. The mechanism is redundancy, which converts one person's error or misconduct from a sufficient condition for failure into something requiring two independent failures to coincide.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Define what is critical: set the threshold above which a second check is mandatory. - Make it independent: require the second person to redo the check, not just sign it. - Record both names: keep the audit trail of who confirmed what.
Anchor fast decisions
Redundancy works because the failure modes of two independent checkers rarely coincide, so the probability of a defect surviving both is the product of the two probabilities rather than their sum. The same structure raises the cost of misconduct from one person's decision to a conspiracy of two, which deters as well as detects.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-person_ruleverified
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