Just how confident do you feel that your knowledge of privacy statutes and laws is fully up-to-date? A recent Thomson Reuters study found that 64 percent of U.S. organizations said they were failing to meet global privacy regulations, while 52 percent said they were struggling to keep up-to-date.

These figures are perhaps unsurprising, especially given the impending introduction of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But they also reveal the widespread need for help complying with privacy requirements, one that Thomson Reuters is aiming to tackle with a new technological solution.

Data Privacy Advisor (DPA) is a new web-based offering from Thomson Reuters that functions as a more focused extension of the company's preexisting research tools. The tool brings together data privacy news and documents with a privacy question-answering feature powered by IBM Watson.

The solution will be offered as a single product worldwide without regional variants, and as such, is primarily focused on multinational businesses and law firms operating in a number of different privacy jurisdictions. Sold as a standalone offering outside of Thomson Reuters Practical Law and WestLaw, Data Privacy Advisor's price details are not yet known, though wider demos and conversations with Thomson Reuters' sales team are beginning this week at Legalweek New York.

From a demo given to Legaltech News and other members of the press, Data Privacy Advisor's main goal is to facilitate three distinct actions for users: independent exploration, question-powered research, and side-by-side comparison. Each of these are accessible from the homescreen that users see upon logging in.

The exploration piece primarily occurs through news and staff-written resources curated by Thomson Reuters attorneys, easily accessible from the home page of the platform. These resources also contain templates for data privacy documents such as response plans for use and customization as needed.

The most interesting piece of exploration for me, though, was the ability to search for laws and regulations by jurisdiction, accessible via the bottom righthand corner of the homepage. A number of technology companies and law firms have attempted to consolidate the patchwork of state and national data privacy laws in one place, but DPA provides this data in a streamlined way, featuring laws from more than 80 countries and each state in the U.S., Canada and Australia that has applicable laws.

For tech-savvy users, the artificial intelligence-powered question-answering system will likely receive the most attention. Although still in beta, the “Ask Watson a Question” system is touted by Thomson Reuters as “the world's first question-answering feature for global privacy compliance.” Practically, what this means is that users can type in a privacy question using common language into the toolbar at the top of the screen. The Watson-powered system will then provide general answers based on textual analytics, and, if needed, break down those answers by jurisdiction or type of document. Each answer is also given a “confidence rating” based on how closely Watson believes it answers a given question.

In order to train the system, Data Privacy Advisor supplies a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, so users can say whether an answer was actually relevant to their given request. Naturally, this means the question answering system will become stronger as time proceeds, though Thomson Reuters has already made the solution available to a limited number of privacy professionals to begin training the system. Notably, Thomson Reuters does say the Watson engine behind the system has been specialized to DPA's needs, meaning it can understand privacy-specific phrases and jargon.

The question-asking system also features data visualizations in the form of a “confidence map,” supplying potentially related topics and documents to a given question. This tool may be especially useful for researchers unfamiliar with the privacy space and its litany of specialized terms.

Finally, the comparison tool within DPA allows for attorneys to compare laws and regulations between jurisdictions. These comparisons are based off of 25 frequently asked questions put together by Thomson Reuters' in-house experts, which are then answered for each jurisdiction.

All of this adds up to a privacy solution that intends to bring a number of disparate data sources and research results in one place, looking to be a one-stop-shop for privacy professionals that operate on a national and international scale and combat a growing problem in the legal industry.

“At the heart of any product is a significant problem that needed to be solved,” said Susan Taylor Martin, president of the Thomson Reuters Legal business, in a press release. “It's clear that privacy professionals are under enormous pressure to help businesses protect the personal data they store and use, while also complying with a complex legal and regulatory environment.”