A software update, a new menu item, a button that summarises. The question that comes straight away is whether that button sends the data out, and the answer is not on the screen: it is in the contract, and sometimes not even there.
These are the ten questions that produce a useful answer, with a note on what each answer means.
1. Where does the model run
This decides all the others. “On your server”, “in our European data centre”, “on a third party API” are three different situations. Only the first involves no disclosure of data outside; the third involves two, to the software supplier and to the model supplier.
2. Who is the model supplier, by name
“A state of the art model” is not an answer. You need the company name, because the location, the transfer regime and the contractual terms all follow from it. An unnamed sub-processor is a sub-processor you can check nothing about.
3. How long are the requests kept, and where
Many suppliers keep requests for a stated period, for abuse monitoring or support. The number matters: thirty days on a European server is one risk; indefinite retention on a non-European server is another conversation. Ask for the number in writing.
4. Is the data used for training
The answer has to be no, and it has to be in the contract rather than on a marketing page. It applies to the model supplier too, not only to the software vendor: business terms are often different from free-tier terms, and that difference is the one that matters here.
5. Is there a processing agreement, and what does it say
Article 28 GDPRopens in a new tab requires a written contract between controller and processor covering the subject matter, duration, nature and purpose of the processing, the types of data, the categories of data subjects and the processor’s obligations. If the supplier does not have one, the problem is not the AI: that relationship was already irregular before.
6. Does the data leave the European Union
If it does, you need to know which Chapter V instrument applies: an adequacy decision, standard contractual clauses, or nothing. “Nothing” does happen, and it usually arrives in the form of silence.
7. What happens to the anti-money-laundering file
This one is specific to a notarial office, and it has to be asked separately because systems tend to treat every folder the same way. Due diligence data has a bound purpose and a disclosure prohibition with no exception for suppliers: why that file is a separate case has a piece of its own.
8. What happens on the day you stop
Nobody asks this one, because it is about a moment you do not picture while signing, and it produces the most instructive answers. If the firm changes practice management system, or the supplier retires the feature, what becomes of the documents that passed through it and of what it derived from them? Within what period are they deleted, and is the deletion certified or merely asserted? Do the backups fall inside that period or run on a cycle of their own?
That last sub-question is worth all the others: almost every contract provides for deletion within thirty days of termination, and almost every system keeps backups for ninety. Both sentences live in the same document, and the second one is the true one.
9. Who answers when the assistant is wrong
You already know the contractual answer, which is that whoever signs the document answers: no supplier takes responsibility for the content of legal advice, and it would be mad if one did. The useful question is a different one, and it sits in the next clause: what is the limitation of liability for loss arising from a data breach, and how is it expressed?
A cap equal to the last twelve months’ fees is the commonest formula, and on a subscription of a few hundred euro a year it describes cover that covers nothing. That is not a reason not to sign: it is a reason to know that the risk in practice stays entirely with the firm, and therefore to decide on that basis which documents that service gets to see.
10. Can it be switched off for one matter
The last one is the most practical, and it separates a tool designed for a firm from one adapted to a firm. Is there a way of saying “not on this matter”? Can the “summarise” button be turned off for one file, for a category of document, for a client who has asked you not to use those tools on their case?
You need it in three situations, and all three occur: the anti-money-laundering file, where the answer is always no; the client who has exercised the option you gave them in the notice; and the sensitive matter you decide about yourself. If the only granularity available is “on for the whole firm” or “off for the whole firm”, the choice left to you is coarser than the one you need.
The answer that ends the conversation
There is one configuration where almost all of these questions stop being urgent, and it is the one where the document does not leave at all: the model runs on the office computer, and whatever leaves is text that has already been substituted, by a decision someone made.
That is how Omissia is built, and it is not a point of principle: it is that with this configuration the answers to questions one through six, and the answer to the eighth, no longer depend on anybody’s contract. They depend on where the file is, which is something you can look at.