After discovering a “significant increase in usage” among its employees, a global legal company has prohibited broad access to a number of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
A senior director at Hill Dickinson, a company with over 1,000 employees in the UK, cautioned employees against the use of AI tools in an email obtained by the BBC.
The company stated that a large portion of the usage did not comply with its AI policy, and it would only permit staff members to use the tools upon request moving forward.
Businesses shouldn’t restrict the use of AI in the workplace, a representative from the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s data watchdog, told BBC News.
The spokesperson added: “With AI offering people countless ways to work more efficiently and effectively, the answer cannot be for organisations to outlaw the use of AI and drive staff to use it under the radar.
“Instead, companies need to offer their staff AI tools that meet their organisational policies and data protection obligations.”
In the email, Hill Dickinson’s chief technology officer said the law firm had detected more than 32,000 hits to the popular chatbot ChatGPT over a seven-day period in January and February.
During the same timeframe, there were also more than 3,000 hits to the Chinese AI service DeepSeek, which was recently banned from Australian government devices over security concerns.
It also highlighted almost 50,000 hits to Grammarly, the writing assistance tool.
However, as a user may have created multiple hits each time they utilized ChatGPT, DeepSeek, or Grammarly, it is unclear how frequently staff members visited these websites or how many staff members returned.
The message sent to Hill Dickinson workers read: “We have been monitoring usage of Al tools, particularly publicly available generative Al solutions, and have noticed a significant increase in usage of, and uploading of files to, such tools.”
‘Positively embrace’ use of AI
In an interview with BBC News, Hill Dickinson, which has offices across England and beyond, stated: “Like many law firms, we are aiming to positively embrace the use of AI tools to enhance our capabilities while always ensuring safe and proper use by our people and for our clients.”
The company further stated that its AI policy will guarantee that use “will remain safe, secure, and effective” and contains guidelines that forbid uploading client data and mandate that employees confirm the accuracy of the results from the massive language models.
Access to AI tools is now only provided by the company upon request. Some requests have reportedly already been received and granted.
The head of the Law Society of England and Wales, Ian Jeffery, stated to BBC News that artificial intelligence “could improve the way we do things a great deal.”
The organization will assist legal colleagues and the public “as they navigate this brave new digital world and make justice fair, equal, and accessible for all,” he noted, adding that AI tools “need human oversight.”
“Despite this increased interest in new technology, there remains a lack of digital skills across all sectors in the UK,” a representative from the attorneys Regulation Authority, which oversees attorneys in England and Wales, told BBC News.
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“This could present a risk for firms and consumers if legal practitioners do not fully understand the new technology that is implemented.”
Sixty-two percent of 500 UK attorneys surveyed in September by legal software company Clio predicted that AI use would rise in the upcoming year.
It discovered that law companies all around the United Kingdom were utilizing the technology to accomplish duties including document drafting, contract review or analysis, and legal research.
AI is a “technological leap” that will “free workers from repetitive tasks and unlock more rewarding opportunities,” according to a representative for the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology.
“We are dedicated to proposing legislation that enables us to safely realize AI’s enormous benefits,” they told BBC News. To make sure our strategy adequately tackles this rapidly changing technology, we are interacting extensively and will soon begin a public consultation.”
Additional reporting by Liv McMahon.
SOURCE: BBC
