Summarizing the UK Coronavirus Act 2020 with Cognitiv+

by Marketing Team | March 26, 2020

Summarizing the UK Coronavirus Act 2020 with Cognitiv+

In this unprecedented moment, it is unmistakable that time is of the essence.

Currently, the lawmaking process is experiencing immense strain. Regardless, interpreting legislation and acting on it is pivotal, so we need to read, interpret, execute as quickly and as accurately as we possibly can.

All of this with one caveat: time constraints cause mistakes.

The Coronavirus Act 2020 (passed through Parliament yesterday) is a 358-page document that will prove vital to navigate the challenging times and uncertainty ahead.

Now, let that sink in. 358 pages. 358 pages to read, analyze and summarize — all within a matter of hours.

We tasked Cognitiv+ (our AI-powered software) to extract a detailed breakdown of the emergency Coronavirus Act.

 

Within minutes, Cognitiv+ was able to:

  • Convert the Coronavirus Act 2020 PDF (downloaded from legislation.gov.uk) into a machine-readable document;
  • Extract a list of obligations and separate them into four categories: Obligation, Prohibition, Deliverable and Discretionary. It is critical to understand at a glance what needs to be done, what is forbidden and what is optional;
  • Output an Excel report that contains the main legislation clauses, a description of their content and the obligations arising from them. Excel reports offer the advantage of quickly searching and filtering areas of interests;
  • Annotate the Act. Because the document has been converted into a machine-readable language, it is possible to annotate it, marking risks and clauses relevant to your area of expertise. Cognitiv+ machine learning technology will learn from it and identify similar clauses within the same document;
  • Extract a word summary for Word Processor enthusiasts, underlining the main obligations.

 

Our pledge as legal technologists

Undoubtedly, the Coronavirus Act is a historic piece of legislation, and its relevance will prove itself not only in the next few days but years to come. And so, the ability to read it, understand it, discuss it and apply it in the shortest time frame possible is critical.

Understanding the gravity and urgency of the current situation, we are committed to making all the reports extracted from the Coronavirus Act 2020 freely available to the public and the media. You can download them here.

 

 

 

Please keep in mind that as with any AI technology, Cognitiv+ has a margin of error — refer back to the text of the Coronavirus Act 2020 for a comprehensive view.

Stay safe and be careful. Our thoughts are with everyone during this difficult time.

The Cognitiv+ Team