Helping consumers avoid the Ts and Cs trap.

A new University of Portsmouth project is looking at whether artificial intelligence (AI) can help protect consumers from unfair contractual terms. When making an online transaction, consumers have to tick a small box with fine print before continuing with the transaction - also known as the final agreement to the trader’s Terms and Conditions, the Ts and Cs. 

However, in reality many people don’t read them and then they have a rude awakening when something goes wrong and the trader refers them to their Ts and Cs, stating that they cannot be held liable. The law does provide a framework to protect consumers from 'unfair terms, but the process is complex, uncertain and time intensive. This is one of the reasons why consumers are not in a better position to protect themselves as they don’t know what they have agreed to.

Dr Jens Krebs, Principal Lecturer in Law at Portsmouth Law School and Dr Ella Haig Reader in Computer Science at the School of Computing, has been awarded £10k from the University’s Themes Research and Innovation Fund (TRIF) for their project that aims to examine the extent to which Artificial Intelligence can be trained to analyse a ‘Ts and Cs’ document to: identify terms which are out of line with terms used in similar documents, detect terms which go contrary to legal requirements and also the law requires traders to include mandatory provisions whose absence the project hopes to identify.

Dr Krebs said: “At this initial stage, we want to establish whether an AI is capable of detecting these cases accurately. If this is confirmed, the next step will consider how these findings can be developed into an app that can be made available to consumers.”

The goal of the project is to allow consumers to consult AI, in the form of an app, when they are about to enter into a consumer agreement. The AI will identify those terms to which consumers should pay particular attention because it considers them unusual, unfair or missing.

Dr Krebs said: “It is important to note that, it is not our intention to provide legal advice to consumers, nor would the app remove the need to read these documents. However, it would be an aid to focus attention on terms which might be seen as ‘unexpected’ to the average consumer.”

The TRIF funding encourages academics and enables those with ideas matching at least one of the University’s key research themes, to use the money to further research as well as contribute to the University's global strategic goals. Dr Krebs said: “We are proud that the project was chosen in a competitive process to receive funding.

“This funding will allow us to make use of one of the key technologies of the 21^st century to eventually design an algorithm that has the ability and capacity to assess contractual terms at an unprecedented scale in the UK. The project represents an important step towards greater protection of consumers in goods and digital product markets.