Institutionalizing automated compliance checking (ACC): a cross-context analysis of implementations in Europe

Automated compliance checking (ACC) is increasingly adopted across planning, building control and environmental certification contexts, but its practical realization varies in ways that remain poorly understood. Authorities and practitioners face uncertainty about when and under what conditions ACC outputs can be trusted as inputs to regulatory decisions. Prior research emphasizes data readiness and auditability but offers little cross-context analysis of how implementation patterns diverge. A multi-case comparative study of ACC implementations across European regulatory settings is conducted, using artefact-centred reconstruction (models, rules, execution logs) and structured stakeholder feedback. Cases are analysed through three lenses: implementation architecture, evidentiary configuration, and governance and adoption. Implementations take different forms depending on the evidentiary configuration embedded in the regulation. Checks are most explainable when evidence representation and execution engine are structurally aligned. Data readiness and provenance function as configuration-specific governance mechanisms, and adoption is strongest where services achieve workflow integration, service-level maturity, and clear allocation of responsibility. The study contributes a comparative evidentiary-configuration lens, articulates evidence–engine alignment as a structural condition for explainability, and reframes data readiness and provenance as governance mechanisms. These insights imply that operationalizing ACC requires treating evidentiary requirements, provenance, and responsibility allocation as part of regulatory service design.