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Regulatory Gap Analysis

Automated compliance gap detection. GDPR test case: 14 articles, 9 gaps found, prioritized action plan.

Model

Regulations are a directed graph. Each article defines requirements. Each requirement connects to controls — the concrete things an organization does to satisfy it. A gap is a requirement with missing control edges: the regulation demands something, and no control covers it.

The analyzer builds this graph from a control inventory, maps controls to requirements, and reports every requirement that has zero or insufficient control coverage. Risk scoring weights gaps by the article's severity and the organization's exposure.

GDPR Test Case

Overview

Articles analyzed: 14
Compliance rate: 75%
Articles with gaps: 9
Risk score: 12.0 / 48.0
Analysis speed: 369,000 articles/sec
GDPR analysis time: 0.0ms

Gap Detail by Article

ArticleSubjectStatusMissing Controls
Art 5PrinciplesCOVERED
Art 6Lawful BasisCOVERED
Art 7ConsentGAPgranular_consent_ui
Art 12TransparencyGAPprivacy_dashboard
Art 13InformationCOVERED
Art 15Access RightsGAPautomated_sar_portal
Art 17ErasureGAPcascade_deletion, backup_purge_process
Art 20PortabilityGAPmachine_readable_export
Art 25Privacy by DesignCOVERED
Art 28ProcessorGAPprocessor_audit_schedule
Art 30RecordsGAPropa_tool
Art 32SecurityCOVERED
Art 33Breach NotificationGAP72hr_breach_workflow
Art 35Impact AssessmentGAPdpia_template

Prioritized Action Plan

Gaps ranked by risk score. Highest-risk items have the largest regulatory exposure and the most missing controls.

Priority Order

#ArticleRiskAction
1Art 17 — ErasureHIGHBuild cascade deletion across all datastores; define backup purge process with retention schedule
2Art 33 — BreachHIGHImplement 72-hour breach notification workflow with authority contact templates
3Art 35 — DPIAHIGHCreate data protection impact assessment template; integrate into project launch process
4Art 12 — TransparencyMEDBuild privacy dashboard showing data held, processing purposes, retention periods
5Art 15 — AccessMEDDeploy automated subject access request portal with identity verification
6Art 30 — RecordsMEDDeploy records of processing activities tool; assign data owners per activity
7Art 28 — ProcessorMEDSchedule annual processor audits; add audit rights clause to processor agreements
8Art 7 — ConsentLOWImplement granular consent UI with per-purpose toggles
9Art 20 — PortabilityLOWAdd machine-readable data export (JSON/CSV) to user account settings

Limitations

The model requires manual control inventory input. Someone has to tell it what controls exist — it inspects a list, not a live system. The gap detection is structural: it checks graph connectivity between requirements and controls. It is not semantic. It cannot read regulation text and extract requirements automatically.

This means it catches gaps in coverage (requirement X has no control mapped to it) but not gaps in quality (control Y exists but is poorly implemented). The first is a graph problem. The second is an audit problem. This tool does the graph part.

MM10P honest assessment: this is a demonstration, not a research result. We created both the regulation graph and the control inventory — the gaps are nodes we intentionally left unconnected. The 369K articles/sec speed is iterating a 14-item Python dictionary, which any language can do in microseconds. Real compliance requires NLP to extract requirements from legal text, expert judgment to map controls, continuous monitoring, and cross-jurisdiction conflict detection. We do none of these. The value here is the graph-based framing and prioritization method, not the implementation.

GUMPResearch · [email protected]