SECAI Core · phase 6 of 15 · noun

Transparency

Everyone in the organization has access to the governance policies and understands why they are in place.

The Explain card

Plain English
Transparency, in governance terms, means everyone in the organisation can see the AI governance policies and understands why they exist, rather than rules living in a locked folder.
Example
A company publishes its AI acceptable-use policy on the intranet with plain-language reasons: which tools are approved, what data may never be entered, and why. Staff can follow the rules because they know what the rules protect.
Why it matters
Policies people cannot find or do not understand get bypassed. Transparency turns governance from a compliance artifact into shared practice, which reduces shadow AI and makes incidents easier to report.
Hook
Transparency means the rules are visible and the reasons are attached.

Word knowledge

How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.

In a sentence

The auditor opened the model card, the training-data sheet, and the decision log to measure transparency at the release gate.

How it is built
  • trans- prefix through
  • par root appear, be visible
  • -ency suffix quality or state
Where it came from
Origin
Medieval Latin transparentia, from Latin transparens, present participle of transparere, to show through, from trans, through, plus parere, to appear
Entered the language
1590s
What changed
The noun first named the optical quality of a medium that lets light through. By the late 1500s it also covered a person or claim that was easy to see through. The 1800s added the lantern slide printed on glass. Political writing in the 1900s applied it to open records and open process, and AI risk work later used it for models and policies whose workings can be inspected.
How it is spelled
Pattern
Adjectives in -ent form nouns in -ency, with t becoming c: transparent to transparency
Pattern
trans- keeps its s before p, as in transport and transpire
Breaks the pattern
The French-shaped noun transparence is still listed; English overwhelmingly uses transparency

Spelled like

  • frequency
  • consistency
  • latency
  • translucent
Broken into chunks
  • trans
    • transmit
    • translucent
    • transfer
  • par
    • apparent
    • appear
    • apparition
  • ency
    • frequency
    • consistency
    • latency
What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

Responsible AI principles

Latin trans- compounds

  • translucent
  • transmit
  • transfer

Where it sits in the deck

Phase 6: Model Quality, Ethics, and Responsible AI Principles

Before deploying a model, understand the quality and ethical dimensions — bias, fairness, explainability, and the human oversight needed to govern outputs responsibly.

Neighbours in this phase