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Taylor Wessing launches data breach app in latest tech push

In its latest push to provide clients with new technology, Taylor Wessing has launched a data breach mobile app TW:Cyber Response ahead of regulation changes next year.

The app provides practical assistance to help clients prepare for and manage breaches as effectively as possible, to minimise their exposure to regulatory action, litigation risk, and reputational damage. Taylor Wessing has released the product one year before General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) come into effect.

The project is part of the firm’s Global Data Hub which includes in-depth analysis, news updates and events to help clients deal with global data protection law. The GDPR creates EU wide rules for businesses and aims to give EU citizens to better control over their personal data.

Disputes and investigations partner and TW:Cyber Response creator Paul Glass said: ‘It hasn’t been created exclusively because of the GDPR. The genesis of it came from a number of breaches that I worked on last year and seeing the differing reactions of clients to what is effectively a crisis management situation.

Glass (pictured) added: ‘The GDPR is a push on that because you’ve got two primary issues which is potentially much larger fines coming in – 4% of global revenues or up to €20m, whichever is the greater – but you’ve also got much more stringent breech notification obligations and what that means is a lot more breaches will be in the public domain.’

This is not the first piece of technology Taylor Wessing has made available for its clients. The firm created TW:navigate, an AI solution using Rainbird technology for automated analysis of exposure to legislation, and TW:diligence, a proprietary software tool and Intapp for legal workflow automation.

In March it emerged the firm had started working with legal tech provider Brainspace for UK litigation analysis. Taylor Wessing has also made a series of launches using eDiscovery platforms such as Relativity alongside trials of RAVN, Kira, Leverton and Luminance.

The firm has a long established presence in UK innovation hubs such as Cambridge, and in 2011 also opened up a small office to service the UK’s ‘Tech City’ near Shoreditch.

Taylor Wessing has also added several leading practitioners to bulk out its technology offering, hiring Latham & Watkins TMC partner Martin Cotterill last year as well as Bird & Bird corporate technology partner Angus Miln.

While the new ventures show Taylor Wessing pushing forward its New Law efforts, the firm previously shelved its document review business New Street Solutions, bringing the project back in-house after a mooted £5m funding round in 2012.

madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk

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