Media Brief · Authority Does Not Travel by Default
What journalists need to know
Micheal Charles Preble · Independent Researcher
Why this research matters
People switch AI providers and expect their preferences and history to come with them. This research asks a follow-up legal question: when that data moves, does the authority to use it actually move too — or just the data itself?
The research in one sentence
Technical portability of AI relationship data is not the same as lawful portability of the authority to use it, and a receiving system should evaluate its own legal basis rather than assume the source's authority travels automatically.
What is new
A multi-source, multi-incident model of authority (several legal sources can govern different uses of the same data simultaneously) and the concept of “retained-but-non-operative state” — a record that legitimately survives while losing its ordinary authority to affect current decisions.
What is established vs. proposed
Established (real, cited law): the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (effective January 1, 2026), GDPR Article 20's portability right, and the EU Data Act's switching provisions all currently exist and are accurately described.
Proposed by this paper: the multi-source, multi-incident model and the destination-side revalidation principle that synthesizes those existing laws for the AI-continuity context. This is legal-institutional analysis, not new empirical data.
What would be inaccurate to say
- That this paper establishes a new legal right, cause of action, or ownership category. It explicitly does not.
- That Texas law or the cited federal statutes constitute a nationwide or universal rule. Texas is used only as an illustrative state-law layer.
- That the paper claims no adequate cross-provider legal architecture currently exists anywhere. It says its narrower claim would be defeated if one is shown to exist — and it does not claim to have proven the negative.
Canonical source / citation
Read the canonical paper record → · Full paper PDF · View on SSRN
Preble, Micheal Charles. “Authority Does Not Travel by Default: Legal Provenance and Revalidation in Persistent Human–AI Continuity” Available at SSRN 7359661, 2026.
Researcher contact
Micheal Charles Preble · Independent Researcher · micheal@perfinitive.com · ORCID
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