Legal And Regulatory Constraints

Definition

A legal and regulatory constraint is a constraint that specifies a governmental law or regulation that must not be violated by the application or component.

Objectives

The typical objectives of a legal and regulatory constraint are to:

• Ensure that the application or component does not violate any relevant laws or regulations.

Examples

The following are typical examples of legal and regulatory constraints:

• “The application shall comply with all relevant tax laws in the countries for which it is being internationalized.”
• “The application shall comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 including Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and health information privacy.”

Guidelines

The following guidelines have been found to be useful when producing legal and regulatory constraints:

• It is important to clearly identify the corresponding law or governmental regulation including any updates or amendments and source (e.g., Internet URL).