Thomson Reuters is introducing a new data privacy research solution that draws together privacy guidance from Practical Law editors, curated news, and a question-answering feature built by AI and technology professionals from Thomson Reuters and IBM Watson.

Data Privacy Advisor was created to support privacy professionals at multinational businesses and law firms. It offers a deeper understanding of the law and privacy obligations across multiple jurisdictions.

A button labelled “Ask Watson a Question” allows questions to be asked using plain English.

TR and IBM spent nearly two years training the system, using more than 60,000 question-answer pairs created by subject-matter experts, according to Khalid Al-Kofahi, TR’s vice president of research development and head of its Center for Cognitive Computing.

The ask-a-question feature is currently trained to work only with certain jurisdictions, but TR will be adding more jurisdictions as the product is further developed. The jurisdictions currently included are: Australia, Canada, European Union, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.

Data Privacy Advisor provides:

– Global statutory and regulatory materials – including pending legislation and regulations, data privacy country guides for 80+ countries, the full GDPR library, and Practical Law know-how content directed to global legal and program management issues

– Question answering via IBM Watson-enabled technology that allows users to ask relevant questions in their own words and receive a full-sentence answer

– Curated news, analysis and blog content specific to data privacy

– Related Concepts – a feature designed to help users discover additional insights that otherwise might go unnoticed, also enabled by Watson.

“Innovation has been our lifeblood for more than 100 years,” said Susan Taylor Martin, president of the Thomson Reuters Legal business. “Data Privacy Advisor is a great example of how we’ve brought together our global content, domain expertise and distinctive technology to meet the needs of legal and compliance professionals.”

Industry experts taught Watson to understand the nuance of legalese – be it simple definitions, such as “parties” or “organisations,” or more specific concepts that data privacy professionals manage regularly.

During the training process, the team solicited feedback from privacy professionals who, along with Thomson Reuters and IBM Watson experts, graded more than 60,000 responses from Watson, helping the system learn and provide increasingly refined responses.

“Adding the AI capability from Watson to our own in-house AI expertise made a true collaboration between our teams to help Watson understand the law and the context of the questions – not just memorize the questions and answers – so the platform truly helps data privacy professionals find the answers they need,” Al-Kofahi added.

“We’re delighted to support Thomson Reuters by bringing IBM’s Watson AI capabilities to Data Privacy Advisor,” said Beth Smith, general manager, IBM Watson and AI. “Watson technology is uniquely suited for data-intensive and complex industries.”

For more information, visit: legalsolutions.com/data-privacy-advisor