Understand the relationship between the Regulatory Agencies Inventory and the Regulations Inventory

The Regulations Inventory (not yet published — refer to the IF4IT Enterprise Inventory Management Best Practices document) will govern the specific laws, regulations, directives, and standards published or enforced by each regulatory agency. Every Regulation record will reference the Regulatory Agency that issued it through an Issuing Agency attribute carrying the agency’s Semantic ID. The Regulatory Agencies Inventory will reflect this relationship in the Related Regulations attribute, derived from all Regulation records referencing this agency.

When published, this relationship completes the first link in the compliance governance hierarchy: Agency → Regulation. For every regulatory agency in this inventory, the enterprise can immediately identify all regulations the agency has issued that are relevant to enterprise operations. This connection enables regulatory change management: when a regulatory agency in this inventory issues a new regulation, the enterprise knows immediately which operations, data types, and systems are in scope — because the agency’s jurisdiction attributes already define the answer.

The Regulations Inventory will also capture the lifecycle of each regulation — proposed, enacted, in force, amended, repealed — enabling the enterprise to track not just current requirements but the regulatory pipeline. Regulations under development from agencies in this inventory are early-warning signals for compliance program planning. The governance chain begins here, in the Regulatory Agencies Inventory.