Law and adaptivity in requirements engineering

The great impact that law has on the design of software systems has been widely recognized in past years. However, little attention has been paid to the challenge of coping with variability characterizing the legal domain (e.g., multiple ways to comply with a given law, frequent updates to regulations, different jurisdictions, etc.) on the design of software systems. This position paper advocates the use of adaptation mechanisms in order to support regulatory compliance for software systems. First we show an example of how Zanshin, a requirements-based adaptation framework, can be used to design a system that adapts to legal requirements to accommodate legal variability. Then we examine how legal texts can be analyzed as sources for parameters and indicators needed to support adaptation. As motivating running example we consider legal situations concerning the Google driverless car and its recent legalization in the highways of Nevada and soon also in California.