info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#designated-technical-writers
> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/217939) in [GitLab Ultimate](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 13.3.
We support a separation of duties policy between users who create and approve Merge Requests.
The approval status column can help you identify violations of this policy.
Our criteria for the separation of duties is as follows:
- [A Merge Request author is **not** allowed to approve their Merge Request](../../project/merge_requests/merge_request_approvals.md#allowing-merge-request-authors-to-approve-their-own-merge-requests)
- [A Merge Request committer is **not** allowed to approve a Merge Request they have added commits to](../../project/merge_requests/merge_request_approvals.md#prevent-approval-of-merge-requests-by-their-committers)
- [The minimum number of approvals required to merge a Merge Request is **at least** two](../../project/merge_requests/merge_request_approvals.md#approval-rules)
The "Approval status" column shows you, at a glance, whether a Merge Request is complying with the above.
This column has four states:
| State | Description |
|:------|:------------|
| Empty | The Merge Request approval status is unknown |
| ![Failed](img/failed_icon_v13_3.png) | The Merge Request **does not** comply with any of the above criteria |
| ![Warning](img/warning_icon_v13_3.png) | The Merge Request complies with **some** of the above criteria |
| ![Success](img/success_icon_v13_3.png) | The Merge Request complies with **all** of the above criteria |
If you do not see the success icon in your Compliance dashboard; please review the above criteria for the Merge Requests
project to make sure it complies with the separation of duties described above.
To download the Chain of Custody report, navigate to **{shield}** **Security & Compliance > Compliance** on the group's menu and click **List of all merge commits**