Canal is the sovereign AI governance gateway. Every AI decision your institution makes passes through Canal — evaluated, sealed, and made permanently defensible before it executes.
What Canal Is
If ANAX is the ISO of AI governance, Canal is its SWIFT — the gateway every decision crosses.
Just as SWIFT governs the movement of money between institutions, Canal governs the execution of AI decisions within them. Every decision passes through Canal's gates before it reaches execution, and every passport seals what each gate found.
Canal is not a one-time assessment tool. It is not a compliance report generator. It is permanent, sovereign governance infrastructure — running continuously, on every decision, for the lifetime of your institution's AI operations.
The output of every Canal evaluation is a Decision Passport — a SHA-256 hash-sealed record of the governance state at the moment the decision was evaluated and cleared. Recorded then, not reconstructed afterwards.
Regulated organisations may be required to maintain records, logs and governance documentation capable of supporting supervisory review under instruments including DORA and, where applicable, the EU AI Act. Canal continuously produces cryptographically verifiable governance records designed to support that review.
How It Works
Every AI decision submitted to Canal passes through four evaluation gates, in order. A gate can block the crossing outright, clear it with a condition, or clear it. Jurisdiction conflicts, regulatory triggers and envelope scope are computed for every crossing and sealed into its passport; they inform the gates rather than standing as gates of their own. Canal is deterministic end to end — no model sits in the path.
The decision is checked against the EU AI Act's absolute prohibitions first. A prohibited practice is blocked outright — no passport is issued, and nothing downstream can override it.
The system must hold an active governance envelope, and the act must sit within what its Mandate authorises. No envelope routes to on-boarding; an expired one to renewal; an act above the Mandate ceiling is blocked — Canal refuses and never raises.
Enforces time-bound governance. The decision is evaluated against the frameworks current at the moment of evaluation — not at the moment the envelope was created. A phase change since then clears the crossing with a VICCA reassessment recommended.
The contract rules decide whether the crossing clears on its own or needs VICCA, then every applicable framework is evaluated together and the most restrictive outcome wins. Complying with one regulation never excuses breaching another.
Platform Capabilities
Every cleared decision receives a SHA-256 hash-sealed Decision Passport: cryptographically verifiable evidence designed to support regulatory, audit, insurance and legal review of the governance state recorded when the decision was evaluated and cleared.
Every sealed crossing is a data point. X-Layer's Sentinel-X reads them to detect when your decision patterns drift from their governed envelope — Canal produces the record that makes drift measurable; X-Layer, licensed separately, measures it.
Multi-hop jurisdiction chain analysis maps every decision against all applicable legal territories simultaneously. Cross-border conflicts are identified and flagged before execution.
Governance envelopes have validity windows. Canal enforces these windows automatically — proactively alerting your team to expiring authorisations and regulatory phase changes.
A complete, searchable, immutable registry of every Decision Passport ever issued. Full audit history — accessible to your compliance team, your regulators, and your board.
Canal integrates directly into your existing systems via a clean REST API. Every AI decision your systems make can be governed without changing your operational architecture.
Regulatory Coverage
Canal evaluates each decision against the applicable controls in every enabled ANAX framework pack, without selective omission within an enabled pack.
Full ICT risk management evaluation including third-party dependencies and operational continuity obligations.
Article-level evaluation across all risk classifications. High-risk AI systems evaluated against all mandatory requirements.
Data processing legitimacy, automated decision-making obligations, and cross-border transfer restrictions evaluated per decision.
Critical infrastructure and essential services obligations. Incident reporting and supply chain security requirements.
Information security control requirements mapped against every governed decision in your AI pipeline.
Risk-weighted asset calculations and capital adequacy requirements evaluated for AI-driven financial decisions.
Consumer outcome requirements and fair value assessments evaluated for every AI-driven customer-facing decision.
New frameworks added continuously. Custom framework packs available for Institutional tier clients.
Pricing
Canal is priced on governance volume — the number of crossings governed each month. The regulatory fine for a single ungoverned decision can be millions.
Crossings above the monthly allowance are blocked until the next month or a tier change.
Passport Trail
The Passport Trail is the complete audit history of your institution's governed AI decisions. Every Decision Passport ever issued — searchable, filterable, and available to your regulators on demand.
When a regulator asks "show me your governance record for every credit decision made in Q3" — you hand them a link, not a folder of PDFs.
Priceable Governance
A Decision Passport is more than evidence for a regulator. It is a common language for risk — one that insurers and the institutions they cover can both read.
Price AI exposure on sealed, independently verifiable evidence — not self-reported claims. Every Decision Passport re-derives to the same SHA-256, so the risk you underwrite is the risk you can confirm.
Walk into a renewal with cryptographic proof your AI was governed at every decision. Governance stops being a cost and becomes a figure your underwriter can act on.
The more the market seals on ANAX, the more a Passport becomes the standard risk is measured against.
Public Verification
Every Decision Passport issued by Canal is permanently registered in a public verification registry. Any counterparty, regulator, or auditor can verify the authenticity and status of any passport — instantly, without contacting you.
Who Uses Verification
Deploy Canal
Request access to Canal. Our team will map your institution's AI decision landscape and configure your governance envelopes within 14 days.