Responsibility and Accountability

Responsibility identifies who performs assigned work. Accountability identifies who must answer for a decision and ensure follow-through. Organizations may use these words differently, so a working assignment should state the actual duties and authority.

Testing and approving are different tasks

An engineer can be responsible for evaluating a refund assistant. An authorized service owner can be accountable for allowing a particular use. Finishing the tests does not give the engineer release authority unless that authority was also assigned.

The owner needs enough information and power to impose conditions, obtain corrections, or stop use. Naming an owner without those powers leaves a practical gap.

Make escalation possible

Specify who resolves an unacceptable result and who acts if the owner is unavailable. Several specialists can contribute evidence without leaving the final decision unassigned. Buying a vendor component does not automatically move responsibility for the organization's complete workflow to the supplier.

Reference: NIST AI RMF Core.