AI Policy

This AI Policy sets out our approach to the development and deployment of artificial intelligence in Writford. It provides transparency about our practices and principles relating to AI, including compliance with applicable laws, responsible use, data handling, and safeguards.

1. Purpose and Scope

Writford provides AI-powered legal research and document drafting assistance for UK solicitors (England & Wales). The service is designed to accelerate legal research and produce draft documents. It does not replace professional legal judgment, provide legal advice, or make legal decisions.

2. AI Models Used

All inference runs on AWS Bedrock in the eu-west-2 (London) region. We do not use OpenAI, Google, or other model providers.

3. Data Handling Principles

• No training on your data: Anthropic is contractually prohibited from using your queries or content to train AI models under AWS Bedrock terms.
• Documents stay local: Uploaded documents are parsed in your browser. Only extracted text is sent for AI processing. Original files never leave your device.
• Minimal retention: AI queries are processed in real-time. We do not store the content of your queries beyond what is needed for the active conversation.
• PII detection and anonymisation: Every chat message passes through AWS Bedrock Guardrails (ANONYMIZE mode) before reaching the Claude model. The guardrail automatically detects and replaces personal identifiers, including names, NI numbers, NHS numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, card numbers, and other supported PII types, with type placeholders such as [NAME] or [UK_NATIONAL_INSURANCE_NUMBER]. If PII is detected, a notice is shown in the chat. This is a defence-in-depth measure; you should still apply data-minimisation and avoid including unnecessary client identifiers in queries.
• Matter data is not sent to AI: Matter management data — including matter names, references, client and party names, descriptions, time entries, key dates, conflict records and collaboration details — is stored in our database and is not transmitted to any AI model. Only chat conversations are sent to the AI for processing.

4. Accuracy and Limitations

• Source citations: Every research response includes clickable citations to authoritative UK legal sources (legislation.gov.uk, National Archives Case Law, SRA guidance).
• Source quality scoring: Sources are scored by authority level (legislation scores highest, followed by case law, then regulatory guidance, then web sources).
• Strict citation rules: Our AI models are instructed to cite ONLY from provided sources and to explicitly state when sources are insufficient rather than generating unsupported claims.
• Jurisdiction focus: Writford’s system prompts and source-retrieval pipeline are oriented toward English and Welsh law. Scottish and Northern Irish law may differ. Users should verify jurisdiction-specific points.
• No hallucination guarantees: While we implement multiple safeguards, we cannot guarantee zero hallucinations. Professional verification is always required.

5. Safeguards

• Prompt injection protection: We detect and block attempts to manipulate AI behaviour through injection patterns.
• Input sanitisation: All user input is sanitised before processing.
• Rate limiting: Per-user rate limits prevent abuse.
• Audit logging: All AI interactions are logged for security and compliance purposes (metadata only, not query content).
• DRAFT watermark: All exported documents include a “DRAFT: For Solicitor Review Only” watermark.
• Disclaimer on every response: Every AI response ends with “AI-generated. Verify before relying on this.”

6. Human Oversight

Writford is designed to require human oversight at every stage:

• The solicitor decides what to research or draft
• The solicitor reviews all AI output
• The solicitor verifies all citations against primary sources
• The solicitor decides whether to use, modify, or discard the output
• The solicitor bears professional responsibility for any work product shared with clients or submitted to courts

We do not make legal decisions, give legal advice, or determine the outcome of any legal matter. Writford is a tool. The solicitor is always in control.

7. Compliance

Our AI practices are designed to align with:

• UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018
• SRA Standards and Regulations (including Principles 2 and 7)
• SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors (paragraph 3.3: competence in use of technology)
• Emerging UK AI regulatory framework

8. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as our AI practices evolve. Material changes will be communicated to users via email. The latest version is always available at this URL.

Contact

Questions about our AI practices: info@writford.co.uk

See also: Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Sub-Processors | Security