If you want to build reliable, traceable digital systems that do legal things, you need to be able integrate those digital systems with written law.
In early 2023, co-founder Hamish Fraser wrote a blog post, expressing his admiration for the people who write and publish statutes – often referred to as Parliamentary Counsel.
In his "love letter", he communicates empathy for the complexity of their task, while also making respectful suggestions about how law could be better published in digital formats.
The post concludes with a pilot example of what could be possible with better digital legal materials: a digital version of the European Union's Digital Services Act (the DSA), which can be filtered according to thematic tags that relate to specific subjects of interest to users.
In 2024, we will be seeking funding and support to take this digital DSA further, and build community infrastructure and annotation features on top of the DSA, with a view to tracking information flows from governments, tech companies, and others.
You can access a prototype of the digital DSA at the end of the blog post linked above. If you'd like to support our work building an open annotated DSA, get in touch using the contact form.