Instant.Lawyer’s Building a Culture of Legal AI Privacy

Privacy, security, and responsible AI are not just checkboxes — at Instant.Lawyer they’re embedded in everything we do. We’ve invested heavily to develop our platform in a thoughtful, privacy-forward, and secure way. Putting humans at the heart of AI means respecting the privacy every user deserves from day one.

In today’s rapidly evolving tech environment, privacy is not just a compliance requirement; it’s a mandatory core value. As a domain-specific legal AI platform serving individuals, enterprises, law firms, and Fortune 500 companies, Instant.Lawyer recognizes that trust is built on a foundation of robust privacy practices and enterprise compliance standards.

Embedding Privacy from the Top Down

At Instant.Lawyer, our commitment to privacy and security starts at the very top. Leadership treats these principles as foundational rather than optional, setting a clear tone for the rest of the company. A strong data privacy culture truly starts at the top – full team commitment is essential.

Our founders consistently champion privacy and security not just as business requirements, but as core to our company identity. This top-down commitment ensures privacy-by-design is part of every function, not just the purview of the legal or compliance team.

From User Experience and Product Development to LawLabs, privacy is everyone’s shared responsibility. Our compliance, legal, and privacy teams regularly engage across the organization to reinforce our obligations and the trust our customers place in us. It’s not always easy or fast, but this investment is paying off in the form of a unified, privacy-aware culture.

One example of this culture in action is how our product team approaches new features. Early in the design phase, they advocate for privacy and security requirements because they know the non-negotiables: no training on customer data, zero data retention beyond processing, and no human review of sensitive content. That kind of alignment doesn’t happen by accident – it’s the result of an organizational mindset where privacy is built in from the start. In fact, “data protection by design and by default” is a principle enshrined in regulations like Europe’s GDPR, and we live by it.

By designing our AI solutions with privacy-by-design principles (such as data minimization and storage limitation) from the outset, we ensure that secure AI deployment and user trust are woven into our technology’s very fabric.

Making Clear and Transparent Commitments

Transparency is a cornerstone of any strong privacy program. Instant.Lawyer backs up its privacy values with clear, public commitments. For example, we were one of the first AI companies, in the process of obtaining certification under the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF), affirming our adherence to its stringent privacy principles. (The DPF is the new transatlantic data transfer agreement, replacing Privacy Shield, and attaining certification signals our dedication to global data protection standards.)

Furthermore, we make our data protection promises explicit in our Data Processing Addendum (DPA), which outlines in plain language how we protect and handle our customers’ data. This DPA reflects the expectations of our clients – many of them highly regulated enterprises – who hold us to the highest standard for privacy and security.

We also hold our technology partners and AI providers to the same high standards. Each must contractually commit to three key principles that safeguard our customers’ data:

1. No retention of customer data: All data is processed ephemerally and then deleted immediately – we do not store your confidential information longer than necessary. This zero-retention policy aligns with data minimization best practices and ensures that even in the unlikely event of a breach, there’s no trove of historical user data to be exposed.
   

2. No human eyes on customer data: We enforce an “eyes off” approach, meaning no human (whether on our staff or at our AI vendors) can access or review your content. Your queries and documents remain between you and the AI, preserving confidentiality akin to attorney-client privilege.
   

3. No AI training on customer data: Our customers’ data belongs to them. We never use client queries or upload documents to train our AI models. This prevents any inadvertent leakage of sensitive information into AI model weights and respects the intellectual property and privacy of client data.

By clearly communicating these commitments, we provide our users and enterprise clients with the transparency and assurances they need to adopt AI solutions securely. Trust is built through action, and we back our words with verifiable measures (like independent certifications and strict policies) to foster that trust.

From Feedback to Action

From the beginning, we give customers and participants direct control over their own data. Every organization using Instant.Lawyer can define their own data retention period in our system – with options as short as just three hours before deletion. If a consumer, law firm or enterprise has an internal policy that AI-generated work product must be purged after use, they can configure our platform to do exactly that. This empowers clients to tailor data handling to their specific risk profiles and compliance requirements (for instance, a highly regulated financial institution might choose minimal retention for sensitive data).

Beyond custom retention settings, users can also proactively delete any of their data within the app at any time with a “one-click delete” application. This self-service data deletion feature is part of our commitment to transparency and user empowerment: nobody should have to file support tickets or jump through hoops to exercise control over their own information. By translating feedback into platform features and policies, we ensure that privacy isn’t just a promise – it’s an experience our customers can see and feel.

Applying Global Privacy and AI Regulations

Instant.Lawyer serves clients around the world, so we prioritize compliance with the varied regulatory frameworks that govern privacy and AI in different regions. In 2025, the global regulatory landscape is highly dynamic, with jurisdictions rapidly advancing new laws and guidance on both data protection and artificial intelligence. Our privacy and legal team’s major focus is staying ahead of these changes, especially in key markets like the EU, UK, Switzerland, Australia, Asia, and North America. We continuously monitor regulatory trends and engage with local experts to ensure Instant.Lawyer’s practices not only meet current obligations but also anticipate those on the horizon.

Critically, we align our approach with internationally recognized standards and frameworks for privacy and AI ethics. For example, we comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – widely regarded as the world’s strictest data privacy law, which mandates strong protections for personal data. GDPR enshrines principles like “data protection by design and by default,” requiring organizations to integrate privacy into the design of systems and processes. We take these principles to heart by minimizing data collection, limiting storage, and building in privacy safeguards from the ground up, as described above. We similarly adhere to region-specific laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other applicable data protection statutes, maintaining a robust global privacy compliance posture.

On the AI governance front, we are preparing for the EU AI Act, which in 2024 became the world’s first comprehensive framework regulating artificial intelligence. The AI Act emphasizes that AI systems, especially those used in high-risk areas like legal services, must be safe, transparent, and non-discriminatory. While the law will be fully applicable in 2026, we are already aligning our practices with its key provisions – from maintaining documentation on our AI models to ensuring human oversight where appropriate. Being proactive on forthcoming AI regulations not only future-proofs our services for European clients but also exemplifies global best practices that benefit all our users (for instance, increased transparency around AI outputs, which the AI Act will require, is a good idea for everyone).

We also benchmark our privacy program against industry standards like ISO/IEC 27701 and the NIST Privacy Framework. ISO/IEC 27701 is an international standard that provides a framework for a Privacy Information Management System – it “specifies requirements and provides guidance for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving a PIMS”. (“ISO/IEC 27701:2025 - Information security, cybersecurity and privacy ...”) By aligning with ISO 27701’s controls (which map closely to GDPR principles and other global requirements), we demonstrate that our internal processes for managing personal data meet a high bar of rigor and consistency.

Similarly, we reference the U.S. NIST Privacy Framework, a voluntary tool that helps organizations identify and manage privacy risk while building innovative products and services. Using frameworks like NIST’s, we take a risk-based approach to privacy, ensuring that as we introduce new AI capabilities, we evaluate potential privacy impacts and mitigate risks in a structured, documented way. These global standards serve as useful guides to reinforce our secure AI adoption practices and enterprise-grade compliance.

By weaving their principles into our operations, Instant.Lawyer offers legal professionals and enterprise clients an AI solution that is built for compliance from the ground up.

Privacy Is a Living Value

The privacy landscape is constantly changing – and so is Instant.Lawyer’s approach. Threats evolve, technologies advance, and regulations update, which means a static privacy program would quickly become outdated. Instead, we treat privacy as a living value that requires ongoing attention and adaptation.

We conduct regular internal reviews and audits of our privacy and security controls to ensure they remain effective. In line with best practices (and standards like ISO 27701’s emphasis on continuous improvement), our senior management and cross-functional teams periodically assess the privacy program’s performance and look for ways to enhance it.

We maintain feedback loops across teams – for instance, our security engineers, data scientists, and legal advisors meet to discuss new developments (like a novel AI model capability or a new hacking technique) and how we might address them proactively. This collaborative, privacy-by-design review process means that privacy considerations are never “one and done”; they evolve alongside new threats and innovations.

Crucially, we stay engaged with the wider community on privacy and AI ethics. Our experts follow guidance from data protection authorities, participate in industry forums, and incorporate lessons from any relevant incidents in the AI space. By continuously learning and iterating, we keep our privacy practices state-of-the-art. At Instant.Lawyer, privacy is more than a policy on paper – it’s a culture and a commitment that we live every day.

By embedding privacy into our products, processes, and people, Instant.Lawyer is setting the standard for secure and compliant legal AI adoption. Through privacy-by-design, transparent practices, and adherence to global standards, we enable consumers, legal professionals and enterprises to embrace the future of AI with confidence and trust.

Thanks for reading & look forward to sharing more of our journey.

Peter Toumbourou

Instant.Lawyer