Segregation of duties is the concept of having more than one person required to complete a task. In business, the separation by sharing of more than one individual in one single task is an internal control intended to prevent fraud and error. The concept is alternatively called segregation of duties or, in the political realm, separation of powers. Segregation of duties serves two key principles: It ensures that there are oversight and appraisal to catch errors. It helps to avert fraud or theft because it requires two people to collude in order to hide a transaction. It is also known as separation of duties.
In democracies, the separation of legislation from administration shall save for unbiased government. The concept is addressed in technical systems and in information technology equivalently and generally addressed as redundancy. The principle of Segregation of Duties is based on shared responsibilities of a key procedure that disperses the significant functions of that procedure to more than one person or section. Without this processes, fraud and error risks are far less controllable.
