T 0.37 Repudiation of Actions

People can deny, for various reasons, to have committed certain acts for example, because these acts violate instructions, security guidelines, or even laws. But they could also deny having received a notification, for example because they have forgotten a deadline or an appointment. The field of information security is focused on accountability, a property predestined to ensure that committed acts cannot be denied without justification. Generally the term non-repudiation is used here.

In a communication there is a further distinction, whether a communication participant denies the receipt of messages (Repudiation of Receipt) or sending of messages (Repudiation of Origin). Repudiating the receipt of messages can be of relevance for, amongst other things, financial transactions when someone denies having received an invoice at a due date. Likewise, it may happen that a communication participant denies sending messages, e.g. denies having issued a purchasing order. Message sending or receiving mail can be repudiated in the case of post messages as well as fax or email messages.

Examples:

An urgently needed spare part has been ordered electronically. After a week it is claimed still to be missing, in the meantime high losses due to production outage are incurred. The supplier denies having ever received an order.