Welcome to Modernizing Worlds, Reform and Reality, the only podcast dedicated to exploring the future of electronic wheels from the World's Modernization Industry Panel. As electronic wheels move from theory into real-world consideration, we bring together leading voices from law and technology to unpack what reform really means in practice. Each episode contributes to a wider program of insight, helping shape the practical path forward. Let's get in today's conversation. Hello and welcome to the first in what will be a series of podcasts on the subject of modernizing wills and, in particular, looking at electronic wills. This podcast is What is an Electronic Will? And this is in the context of the Law Commission's report last May, May 2025, on modernizing wills. And it came up with a number of recommendations about how electronic wills could be safely implemented in England and Wales. However, these were a lot of questions which in some ways are unanswered. So we wanted to start today, at the very beginning, and explore what is an electronic will. In future episodes, we'll be going into more detail about the legal implications of an electronic will, looking at specific issues relating to remote witnessing, both from the technical point of view and the legal point of view, looking at how electronic wills could be stored and registered, and what is a safe and reliable, secure and reliable system as outlined in the Law Commission report. So this is the first of what will be several, but this is starting at the absolute ground floor. Now, speaking with colleagues and others in the private client practice in the UK, it appears to me that a lot there's still a lot of questions around what is an electronic will, as set out by the Law Commission. So that is the the principles, those are the principles and the definition that we'll be using throughout the series, being guided by the Law Commission's reports. And let's start there. So firstly, I'm Anthony Phillips. I'm the CEO of ARK and Legal. We are a leading provider of will and estate planning software in the UK and across other Commonwealth markets. And I'm joined today. Jeff, do you want to introduce yourselves? So my name is Seb Sheik. I I guess am quite familiar with the industry based on my time. Um founding another Wheel Writing software provider back in 2016. Currently I'm serving as CEO of a new project called Super Lawyer. And yeah, I'm Mev. Lovely to be here. Thanks, guys. I'm CTO of a subsidiary of TM Group called LawTech. We're practice agnostics, so we work with property, private client, family, and all that kind of wonderful stuff. And uh yeah, it's great to be here. Guys, thanks for joining. And look uh and appreciate your modesty. Just taking one quick step back, we, the three of us, are members of an industry panel which gathered uh following the the BWAPS last year, comprised of leaders across the industry, both in tech, legal practice, and also professional bodies. So we've we're trying to get a very broad representation of the profession of the private client sector to really get into the details of the Law Commission's uh reports and break them down into bright bite-sized chunks, uh looking at each in turn. So thank you both for joining and uh looking forward to the conversation. So let's start at the literally at the very beginning. What is an electronic will? What does it look like? So let me can I pose a question to you? An email enters your inbox and it says Joan Smith's will. There's an attachment to that email. It's a PDF. Now, you know, assuming the Law Commission's recommendations have come to pass, what do you make of this? If it is an electronic will, how would you know? What does it look like? Maybe Seb, as founder of Will Suite, you might know a little something about um production of wills. I might start with you. What would you make of this PDF attachment to uh to the email? Yeah, I mean I guess the the proposals are still kind of open at the minute, but that that could be one, I guess, good example of you know signed PDFs, which are essentially you know being able to attach metadata to a PDF file so you can actually verify that it has it has been certified as signed by by a person. I think that comes into some of the requirements of the reliable system that's proposed. Uh one of them is uh I think at this at the time of signing the will, being able to link a signature with a person who's actually signed it um at the time. Yeah, thank you. And okay, so we we've got a PDF that could well be an electronic will. So Mev sev made some points there that you know there's some metadata attached to the PDF. What does that mean? I mean, so I'm a I'm a lawyer practicing in private client for a few years. I don't really have a sense of what these words mean, other than that I've heard them. How would I, in that context, be able to discern this metadata? What does that mean? Yeah, good question. But before I before I directly answer that, I think uh taking a step back and just differentiating between an electronic will versus a non-electronic will is going to be quite important. So in your case, we have a will that comes in, it's a PDF version and it's signed. There are distinct things that will make it an electronic will, metadata being one versus just a generic digital will, which might have been done online and then just saved as a PDF. So we have to make that distinction between a electronic bill and an a non-electronic bill, whether we refer to that as digital or not. The main differences are uh the use of metadata for the validating that document. And what do we what do we mean by uh metadata is is your question, Anthony. So it could be anything from in in a digital will, you have something called a signature panel. And and we can all imagine, you know, a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat, you opening a PDF on that and what that looks like, right? And on the right-hand side, you would have something called a signature panel. And in that signature panel, you would have the cryptographic evidence that somebody has physically, well, physically, digitally signed it at a particular moment in time. Uh, you would have the signature itself. But equally, if not more important, is wrapped up in all of that is the provider or a provider that offered the signature aspect as part of that uh electronic will, right? So it's also validating that the signature provider is legitimate and complies with various different kinds of standards needed for electronic wills. So all of these things together is what we refer to as metadata, and it's the validating of that data which makes the will different from say a digital will to an electronic will. Super, thank you. So just to tease that out, so the metadata, so I guess I could imagine that uh a PDF in this context has two flavors of data. There's the data that I can see on the page, on the printed page, and that's the the the will document that I understand. And there's metadata, which isn't immediately visible, but I can open a reader or a panel, it's available inside the document and it is viewable. Now, this raises a question in my mind, which is look, as a hypothetical practitioner, I may have no uh understanding of what that really means or how to access it. And I think we can come to that, but I mean my assumption is I mean, we I think understand what metadata is and how to access it. I think part of our job as we think about the safe and reliable rollout of electronic wheels is making that really obvious and easy and seamless to practitioners. So uh and it's of already we're sort of getting into um some of the nitty-gritty of how will we make this work? And I think we'll just raise a question, which is how will we make this metadata which is intrinsic in the document easily visible and you know reliably accessible by practitioners? And I say this thinking that we all have a point of view and how we can make that a lot easier, but I I do want to highlight that if this is going to work, part of our job, I think, as as technologists is to make this as seamless, as simple, as straightforward for every practitioner so they don't have to think about the the whys and wherefores. They can literally press a button and this metabase data that you're describing will become visible to them in some format. Yeah. On that point, I think it's an education piece that we as technology providers have to work with our clients in the wider market to explain that. Because you're absolutely right that just like in other areas of law, right? In this case, it's it's private client and wills, but equally there are other areas of law where solicitors and you know, lawyers generally aren't expected to be experts, but still looking at things uh as if experts, source of funds being one for you know, property. But in the context of this, that we don't we want to work with clients and the wider market to for them to understand that they don't necessarily need to validate everything, they don't need to be experts in validating and understanding whether one provider is better than another provider or anything like that, but rather making it clear to them that as long as set pieces of data are there, that it is valid. And unfortunately, there's no easy way to or direct way to do that. It is an educational piece that happens over time. But from a technological standpoint and feeding into the education piece, when it comes to electronic wills that use, let's say, more valid ways of signing that prove authentic authenticity as well. And and I'm talking about QES, qualified electronic signatures there, it is it is important to open these wills in PDF readers versus non-PDF readers because they are designed for PDF readers. And by that, all I mean is the likes of Adobe Acrobat or equivalent software versus just clicking the PDF and having it open on your browser. I think that's where a lot of this confusion is going to come from. And we're already seeing it from our side with with those that do electronic wills and QES. You get a document you think just clicking on it opens, but it doesn't open it in the right way to actually see that metadata. Precisely. Um you've landed on a really important education piece. And I think as we go through the series, I think this is going to be one of a number of um topics where we, technologists, understand the implications of what it means, but we have to provide it in a way that is very predictably easily adopted. And I know we've all got ideas of how we'll do that, but um doing that in a consistent way, I think, will be will be key. I also just wanted to note that you you've touched on various ways that a electronic document or will in this context can be authenticated or signed, and you've you've referenced different kinds of electronic signatures, and you've made reference to a QES, which stands for a qualified electronic signature. We're coming to those in more detail, but I think it's important to call out that there is a lot of detail to this, and what we're gonna try and do is layer it in a way that makes logical sense. So I think it's just worth putting to one side that the question of how these things are gonna be properly signed and validly signed is an open question. I think we all have points of view on uh on how that will come about, but it's important to uh put a bookmark because we'll be coming back to that in in future episodes, and it's obviously crucial. So here we are, we're we're we're at our our inbox, we've opened this document, uh we can see it's a will because we can see the printed page. We've opened the metadata panel and we can see the metadata, and that metadata will show in an electronic will that has been properly encrypted and produced in a secure system its creation details. And it will show when it was created, possibly by whom, things that have happened to that document along its creation. It could also show other documents that have been uh attached to the will. For example, competency tests, video interviews, uh and they can all pull important parts of the uh evidence and information that sit behind the will, should it be contested in in the future as well. Uh but these are all important elements of electronic will that can also be disclosed when user users metadata. Yeah, and I I I I think it again it's it's important to reiterate that uh that what we are kind of keeping things at the the very basic level and talking about PDFs and attachments to that. And I guess because the other areas are going to be explored in the future, one thing that I found is that with an electronic will, there's there's a lot of confusion because it's made up of lots of different parts. You've got an actual digital file that could be the electronic will. Some people might see an online will as electronic because it's been written, it's been made electronically using the computer. And then you've also got the registration, is i if if it's if if there was a registration service and it was um registered electronically, similar to the LPAs and getting access codes for that to be able to verify that that that that's um that's a will. That can some people think that that's a digital will. And then there's the remote attestation uh attestation, which is um, I guess something or the remote witnessing side uh during COVID, which we opened up and and that's if this document is witnessed remotely, using Zoom or something, that's that that's an electronic will. And all these things, I guess, um sit in their own kind of uh modules. And potentially one of one of them or or some of them or all of them could could be seen as electronic will, because I think the um the government in their report describe electronic will as uh well an electronic format rather than paper. And that's quite broad and it doesn't really break down the what's an electronic signature and uh and that side. So I'm I'm glad that we'll be diving into those areas because it might the solution might potentially, I guess, at the very basic level, be a signed PDF, or it could be part of a wider system. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. And I I'm using the PDF as a material example that I I'm hoping you know the vast majority of our our viewers will be familiar with. But you're you're quite right, there may be other options as well. But just focusing on something that's well known and um understood, I think just helps bring bring it all together. I just want to kind of maybe now that we're kind of starting to understand what this thing actually is, what it looks like, where does it you know it appears in my inbox like any other document? Let's just take one step back and ask, I guess, the fundamental question, why? So the Wills Act is coming up on its uh 200th uh anniversary, happy birthday, in a few years. And uh it works after a fashion. Uh it's not ideal, they're clearly challenges. So why introduce electronic wills? Would you like to go first? Yeah, absolutely. I I mean I I think there are, if we're if we're talking electronic broadly, um there's this there's uh tons and tons of benefits to being able to do that. Firstly, um one of them is writing a will, and we all know that I think the statistics generally change, but I think it's around um only 40% of people have a will. So clearly there's it's it's a lot people a lot there's a lot more of the population that need a will, and it's perhaps that the service isn't as accessible as it should be. Um and I think uh allowing both formats would make would open up the the um the population or more of the population to actually writing wills. Um there's the there's benefits that we kind of don't even think about, which which is um the amount of wills are actually currently written and waiting to go through probate. And and if you lay all of them together, they would stretch around the whole the the entirety um of uh of the world. So there's the there's those kind of environmental benefits. But also I think you'll you'll find more and more people, as more and more documents and and services go digital, there's less and less people owning things like printers and stuff. So you know, if you if you are writing a will yourself um not by hand, it makes it inaccessible to actually go and get that printed and signed by other people. So just on the very basic level, electronic wills I think would solve that without even touching on uh the other areas, like if they were to be registered and making probate more efficient by just having things that that are transferred without touching on points and around the actual uh wills that may be deemed invalid because those are tested incorrectly, because they're just done on paper. Um there's no way for that paper to talk back to you and say you've done this incorrectly, or ensure that you that things are done in the correct order. So so so there's the benefits are yeah, I guess simply huge, uh, in my in my opinion. And mine too, as it turns out, I think you've touched on the two really important points there. The the first being, look, assuming from all the data that we can see, adoption of wills in the UK is in the order of 40%, uh, which is low. And you know, I think we're all here because we understand the enormous benefits that having a um will brings to you know to the test data, to uh to beneficiaries, you know, to um to the probate system. So across the board, I think there there are clearly benefits there. The other point you touched on, I think we should draw out a little, is I I I think you'd agree we're not talking about either or, we're talking about and. So we're uh we're suggesting that paper wills can and should continue indefinitely, I mean, likely for decades, maybe hundreds of years, maybe forever. But this is an addition to that. So coming back to the point that we're trying to open accessibility to wills, this should add, not change, not subtract to the existing opportunity. Is that a fair fair statement? Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, you can't just kind of go out and change it so uh paperwheels aren't you know aren't valid. And and for some people, paperwheels are the more accessible route. But it's it's I guess if you look at the LBA modernization, what they're looking at is having a fully kind of digital online system, but also being able to, if for instance, some people aren't um electronically adept, then they can have or they can request to still use the paper copies. And I think that's that that's something that that works well for because what what we've got to think about is inclusive inclusivity. And that you'll see that with the statistics of people writing walls, it's generally the older population who quite commonly don't have that kind of technical ability that that that younger might. So I think keeping it open but adding um this path that can be more secure and uh and and I guess with with all the benefits that we've mentioned is is is only going to benefit things. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, uh aligned. And that you you make a great point there about uh different age demographics. And yeah, I think it's a fair assumption that uh for the most part, older folk want to be as comfortable in visual formats, but clearly younger generations are, and you know, we also know that younger folk for the most part uh are currently the the least likely to complete wills. So if this broadens the uh the ways people can create valid wills safely, then that's just sounds like a a good thing for all concerned. And to my mind that's one of the key reasons why we're here is just finding a way that more people can construct wills more easily. Um so I think a related point to that is uh it's not sort of necessarily uh intrinsic in the idea of an electronic will, but in the way it's envisaged by the uh law commission, it's important is the prospect of remote witnessing. So currently that is a constraint, you know, that witnesses you know need to be, you know, essentially in the same room as the test data. And that you know, that is a hurdle that creates friction. You know, that's a meeting that needs to be arranged. You know, in a world where a document could be safely, securely reliably witnessed remotely, that just makes logistics a lot easier and makes the you know the the formulation and the signing of a will easier. It does, of course, beg the question, which is how You do that remote witnessing in a safe reliable way. And we'll be drilling into that in quite a bit of detail, both from a technical and legal point of view, in in some later episodes. But I think that's also important to call out too that that is sort of implicit well and implicit in some of the law commission's writing, but in the in the principle of having electronic will is remote witnessing. So I don't want to trivialize that point. I appreciate it raises a large number of questions, technical and legal, but I just wanted to put another bookmark for uh future discussions on that one as well. So we've got a sense of why do it. Yeah, we've got a sense of the benefits that it can bring. I I think one of the other things we'll come to as we describe more about what's in an electronic will, what are its elements, that there's some other benefits as well in terms of the information that the will carries. So can we turn then to um you know what are the the bits of an electronic will? What under the law commission's recommendations? Yeah, what is it describing? So I guess first and foremost, the identity of the testator and the witness and the witnesses needs to be authenticated. And there are various ways you can do that. You can you know turn up to your solicitor's office with the passport. Uh guess that would be pretty easy, but that sounds like work. You could send them a picture of it, you could do a video call. But I understand videos now can be comparatively easily spooked. So this raises a big question about how do you validate the identity of someone remotely? And maybe Mev, just if you'd like to just touch on some of the ways that you might be able to do that. Yeah. Um so validating identity generally, as you said, there's there's multiple different ways. Um over the past four or five years, um digital uh validational and authenticity of IDs has become uh popular and and mainstream. Um with like the likes of HMLR accepting digital IDs for various different uh deeds and so on and so forth. The UK uh government, current government, are looking to roll out uh their own concept of a digital ID wallet and biometric ID. But but all this plays into that the way that one in the context of an electronic will will be able to validate someone's ID is through a biometric ID. Um again, there are benefits and negatives with all this, but I think it all just comes back to the inclusivity aspect that Zeb spoke about. You know, for those clients that want a paper will, that kind of identity is not right. And there are other methods which one can validate an identity, as you as you mentioned, Anthony, you know, come into the office if that is the preferred way. But generally speaking, where electronic wills are going to be most adopted and most used and most benefit seen is when they are combined with a biometric ID that can validate the client, their document, and witness, all in the kind of single workflow prior to actually signing that will and locking it up. Yeah, and spoil spoiler alert, it turns out that as we all know, there are providers who provide that service. One of the primary uh types of service uh we've already touched on is a qualified electronic signature. So, from my understanding, the way that would work is in one session, so it's it's all live and connected at the same time, the software can validate one's identity and validate that you know it's you mev, and validate that it's you mev, attesting, witnessing, signing a particular document within a particular session at the same time as other people who may also be remote are doing the same. Yes. So there's there's complexities on it, and I I wouldn't want to spoil any fun for future episodes of this uh series, but I will try to keep it high level in terms of the information. So if we imagine sending a QES, and and sending a QES is no different to sending a normal e-signature, right? You you send a document, you specify where people are going to sign, and you send it, right? What then has to happen is a series of specific things. First is when sending that document, we have to specify who is signing first, followed by second, followed by first. So there has to be what's called a signing order. And this comes into the last part, which I'll come I'll come on to. Once we send that with the signing order, say it's us free on this particular series that are signing, and and Seb's gonna sign first, right? So Seb will log into said platform, um, then he'll go through the process of biometrically verifying himself first. Okay. Um and that process is just like a normal biometric uh uh uh check. So he takes a picture of his ID where appropriate. He might scan the little NFC chip, that's the little chip in passports for kind of an enhanced identity check. Um, and then he'll take a picture of himself, do liveness detection, all that kind of wonderful stuff to validate him and his document. What's important to note, though, is that provider has to comply with a with a framework slash certification called EIDAS. That's uppercase IDAS. Um it's a it's a European framework that doesn't govern QES, it governs electronic IDs, of which QES falls under as part of that uh uh framework. So it has to be an EIDAS certified ID provider. There are no UK-only certified providers just yet, so we're still having to follow European standards, but the the the talk industry, there is some coming to the UK market, which are only UK EIDAS. Nevertheless, SEB would then verify himself. Upon verifying himself and passing it, all happening at the same time, um, SEB would get what is called a qualified electronic signature certificate. So that's just a digital kind of, we spoke about metadata, right? It is a set of metadata that's being stored in the background that is essentially the certificate, right? Then once Seb verifies himself and that certificate is assigned to him, he'll be pushed onto signing the document and he will then sign. And it is this certificate that is used to kind of stamp that document, that it is Seb signing. Because once he signs, he'll then qualify back in that same process that it's him signing. Again, this all happens in the background rather than Seb actually having to flip-flop. So the idea is that when he signs, that certificate is essentially stamped on that document. This process is then repeated with you, Anthony, and then repeated with me in that particular signing order. And then once that's all done, that document becomes locked. It is it is an overarching certificate with all of our subcertificates is created, which locks that document. And it has a little kind of mark on it to say this is now QES'd, it's it's certified, and no changes have been made. And that's really important because that's the difference between an original versus copies, where once it's kind of locked, if there are changes, it invalidates it. But that is the process of a QES assigned to an electronic will. And it is that process and all that that comes with it that Seb mentioned in a previous answer, where like there are benefits to legalities and disputes and probate and all that kind of wonderful stuff. So so you've raised a number of great points there. If I can just t tease out a few. So that is quite significant and sort of different from other types of e-signature and other attestations that we've uh you know may be familiar with. So I think that's really important to call out, and that's sort of satisfied the first point, which is the identity of the uh of the testating witnesses, can be validated to quite a high degree. Now, the second point is that uh you know that we know that the time and date of execution, well, that's just intrinsic in that data. We it's important that the document is protected from unauthorized alteration. Well, we know that because uh if it is, then that will break the the hash, and yeah, we can see it's not valid or that's been changed subsequently. So tick. And then finally we need to ensure that this is the original authentic will and it can be distinguished from copies. Now uh to my mind this is an interesting point because if I you know let's assume that this uh PDF is a attachment, is an electronic will as described by the Law Commission. If I make a copy of that file, it's exactly the same. It doesn't make any difference. Is that is that right, Seb? From a technical point, the the file is is exactly the same. It's made up of the same bits and bytes as as as the other file. I think one of one of the requirements that are mentioned is that you can identify the digital world so it can be distinguished from any copies. And if we're talking about a copy in the sense that I just then go on and and copy it or or or copy the text in it, that that would be vastly different. That would not match up and it would not have the same kind of certification and the same signatures. And if anything was edited manually, then yeah, the the the kind of it wouldn't marry up. Yeah, yeah, it wouldn't marry up. Yeah, and it and it's something that again anyone uses this this kind of similar process as well, uh, with having like a a body that certifies this, uh be it Pakistan or any other providers. Uh people use this kind of thing every day when they're simply using the internet. So if you go to a website and it's got HTTPS and it will say secure, it used to say secure website, and and it was a mix between HTTP sites and uh that would say not secure and HTTPS. That's a similar concept. That's just where you've got a certificate body that's verified that um that connection is like does belong to the servers that are behind it and that that connection is encrypted with with keys and things. So it's it's not science fiction. And it can be hard to, I guess, what when all these words are are are being thrown around, like the identity providers and all this kind of thing. Um but it from a usability point of view, it will be made very easy to use using technology and and all this kind of thing is it's validated with technology. You don't have to go in and and and calculate some functions to match them up. So it will just simply have, yeah, this has been tampered or not tampered. That's a great way to kind of tease it out is that yeah, a copy of the text is almost neither here nor there. If if the whole document is copied, it doesn't make any difference because the metadata is intrinsically part of the document, and it's that's still an original for all intents and purposes. If you just you know copy the text and and go from there, then it is completely distinguishable from the executed will as we described, because it won't have the metadata and the foundations that we've described. So that's that's really helpful. Thank you. Yeah, definitely. I I think one one point that we um I think might have taken briefly, um, which which which I'm sure will raise questions for um for future calls is if you have two copies of will because you've emailed it and then someone's downloaded it and they they still have the access to download it again, um, you've all got all these kind of copies of the same document that are functionally the same and and are all certified with with the certificate that's in it, and then then the testator wants to um revoke their will, and they and that opens up questions like can they do that just by opening the document in their system and deleting it there? And that that's their intention to revoke it, but other people still have copies of this, and and that's where I think the future will get um get really interesting. I I think you you raise an incredibly interesting and important point. Um and we'll be touching on this when we go into storage and registration in more detail. And you know, there are a lot of implications from the different ways that we end up thinking about registration and storage. And you're you're highlighting one of the key ones, which is uh revocation. It becomes more challenging um if we don't have centralized registration. There are ways we can think about it, but it certainly becomes more of a challenge. But look, across the board, uh we we've touched on some things that are specific to the envisaged electronic wheels, but there are a whole bunch of things that are not specific and that are still, you know, expected of electronic wheels as they are of paper wheels today. And so, you know, I think all of the points we've uh we discussed notwithstanding, it's still expected that an electronic will be substantially similar to existing wills in that they evidence the capacity, knowledge, approval, intention, freedom from undue influence. All those sort of points still stand. These are sort of additional formalities, but all the other stuff is unchanged. I'm putting mental capacity just to one side because I appreciate there are proposals to change how that's measured. However it's measured, that's still a a function of a valid will. So this kind of takes us to um what is the the threshold, what's the bar that these electronic wills need to, the hurdle that we need to jump over. Um and uh coming back to the first principle that we want to expand the uh the pool and make it easier for people to uh to create wills, it seems that the bar is electronic wheels don't need to be better than paper wills, but they need to be at least as good in every relevant particular so wherever a paper will does something useful today, electronic wills tomorrow need to do that at least as well. Not necessarily better. That said, I think in many respects they are. We can talk about that, but they certainly can be no less good. And I I think you guys would agree with that. Yeah, that's right. So I think it's important that when we speak, we talk about these things from a technological point of view. Uh, you know, uh this is how it will work technologically speaking. But at the end of it, your client is still your client, they're still a person. So the process of creating that will, speaking to your client, understanding their you know, capacity, you know, coercion, you know, all that kind of stuff, that remains the same as you as you say. So the creation of the will, the process that you go through, isn't really dissimilar to what they do now. All we're saying with electronic wills um is the process of them physically coming into the office and signing in front of you, that is the part that's changing and along with Huberbits, but it's that part that means that's changing, and how do we ensure that process is as secure as possible if you're in say Manchester and your client is in London? That's the part that we're specifically referring to. The Wolves Act as many people um will know is is 1837. Uh so this is but the Wills, you know, they're still that's still the basis of Wolves today. So I think any any reform now, it's not just around, okay, what technology have we got available today? We've also got to look long into the future and think about, you know, will this kind of file be supported in 100 years time when when we need to access it? And there's there's lots of challenges and stuff with technology evolving so rapidly, especially at the minute, um, that they can bring this this quantum computing can potentially break certain types of encryption and things. And if we've got all these wills that can, if the encryption's broken that that are stored, that can then you can then go back in time and change that um then with like without and almost recertify it in the past. Um these are I guess the challenge that we've got now with technology and and it being such an evolving um evolving far, far more rapidly than than the law has done. Um so yeah, I think I think just to touch on that, it's it's important that when there are reforms and when when when things are being looked at changing, we we do have to think about you know not necessarily our lifetimes, but generations to come and the way that we're doing things needs to be able to support that and and and and be available technically. I think that I mean that's that's it's a super important point. And it sort of point and it leads to a question about all the and then what's that followed from having electronic will. So I think it was you said that touched on a few points early in the discussion about about the process for completing an electronic will and how electronic forms, in a sense, constrain you in a positive way so that it makes it easier to fill it in correctly. And just doing that, just doing something in a valid way, can speed up processes. I mean, an odd example is probate. Digital probate is something in the order of one-third, sorry, uh two-thirds faster than paper probate. And as near as I can tell, one of the reasons is when you're filling out electronic forms, you sort of can't get it wrong. Or you can't enter the wrong information or leave out the right information because you won't be able to press send. You know, the little red box will appear, you know, by degrees. So I think there's certainly there's certainly benefits from you know consistency, accuracy that come from digital formats. But it strikes me in this area there are a whole bunch, a whole host of other advantages that could flow from having electronic wills. And I just want to, you know, just some blue sky thinking. I'm thinking here of probate. You know, imagine a world where you don't need to go through steps to validate the will to send it in. You can email it and it's readily uh obvious that it's um that it's been validly executed and that it's valid. The process can start sooner. You can imagine a world where the associated services going to probate become digital too. Um because it also just strikes me that one of the challenges we have today is just scale. So the scale of the problem being solved in 1837 is a fraction of the problem that we have today just in terms of the sheer numbers. So processing paper is more cumbersome and takes longer and more effort than processing electronic formats. And it would be to me a huge disappointment if in the coming years, you know, we go to all the trouble of introducing electronic wheels, but then don't take advantage of all the downstream benefits that flow. I mean, I don't know if you guys have views on that, but uh it strikes me as sort of one of the great benefits further down the line. I mean, it's already been mentioned of the legal benefits. So I think, you know, I don't want to downplay it or overplay it, but I think by making a will, you are ultimately thinking post-your life, right? For your children, for your family. So then for to go through probate and have a contested will, that's that's quite a you know, it's quite an emotionally draining process. So the you know, I don't mean to suggest that contentious probate is going to go anywhere anytime soon, but that process made easier is just better for the client and clients generally. But more but more generally for the law firm as well, and and you just mentioned it there, Anthony. There are firms that have reams and reams of paper in a room that is their will bank, right? They put them in storage. And there's both a security element to that, in that, you know, if there's a fire or anything like that, all those classic reasons, that's that's all the will's gone up, but also there's a cost element. That though that storing that many wills isn't cheap. So there's loads of loads of benefits to say paying for one. OneDrive and having that as your source versus a whole cabinet full or several cabinets full in a room or in storage or whatever. So there's absolutely loads of other benefits other than just time and speed. There's financial benefits, legal benefits, and all that kind of wonderful stuff. Yeah, and exactly my thought as well. And I look, I don't think we'll go into those in great detail, but I think these are worth mentioning that in addition to the benefits that I think we perceive in terms of opening wheels to more people and enabling the safe and secure creation of more wheels, there are all these auxiliary benefits that will flow in in time as well. Just to move back to another point we're talking about what you get with an electronic wheel, and you know, it has to be at least as good as paper, it strikes me that in many respects it's significantly better. So coming back to the contentious point, um if you think about the the real evidence that you get from a signed piece of paper, a lot of that I think is inferred. So you infer that it was the test data and the witnesses that signed, you infer that they were all at the same place at the same time, but none of that information is available on the face of the document. It's all inferred. And you might have, you know, evidence, maybe you scheduled a meeting where all this happened, and you know, and you can accumulate the evidence, put together the story, but it's not all there. Now I contrast that with electronic wills, where there are rings of really useful, very highly secure information that you don't get. Uh and yeah, just top of mind, you know the identities of the people who signed a document, uh, you know the time and dates of signature, you know the document hasn't been altered post-signature, you know documents that were attached to the will during its creation, like I was saying, maybe a video interview, drafts, uh, competency tests, and they can all be referenced in that document in a way that no other you know, you just cannot do with paper. I mean, you can say, you know, the words at the time there was a video created, at this time there was a competency test created. Maybe with this, you know. And it's it's very hard to break it apart. I mean, if it's there in the encrypted data, it's yeah, I think very highly validated. Yeah, absolutely. I think it just comes down to ambiguity. You know, the industry as a whole accepts it. Solicitors accept that you know the witness did actually see you sign it, not just you signed it and then you went and gave it to them after the fact, right? Courts also accept ambiguity that proper processes was followed and so on and so forth. So alluding to what all the things that you you said there, Anthony, and I have a paper with my notes, and I think when it comes to um electronic wills versus non-electronic will, some of the main differentiators in terms of benefits can be summarizing like identity, as you say, the verified identity versus non-verified, the signature, which is handwritten versus, you know, say an electronic signature of QES standard uh witnesses rather than assumed is is literal and integrity, time of execution, all the trails. So there are absolute benefits to an electronic will that's followed proper process in its creation versus the ambiguity of paper wills. That's not to diminish paper wills in any way. It's just that electronically speaking, you can validate stuff easier than non-electronic wills. So I'm thinking in the in the context of a Lycon Nugis request where you just want to know the circumstance of the creation of a will. If I responded to that request basically with a summary of the metadata, that's a very robust response. Very I don't want to say bulletproof, but it's chapter and verse in a very reliable format. If I you know write out the chronology, referencing the meetings, all that all that stuff, it's evidence, but it has to be weighed and maybe validated. The metadata it's not perfect, but it's it it has a very, very high evidentiary weight, in in my view, subject to what the courts say. So I I think while it certainly doesn't have to be better than paper, um, well, it needs to be at least as good, I think in many respects it is better in terms of the quality of the evidence that just the document itself produces in the event of a conflict. Now now, guys, but just finally, uh we've touched on a lot of detail about what is an electronic will. I do just want to kind of uh go into a little more detail about what it's not. And we touched on this a little earlier in the conversation, but I think it's good to piece it out. So I hear terms like online will, electronic will, digital will, e will used somewhat interchangeably. Arbitrarily, we're using the term electronic will because that's the term used by the law commission, and that's the the definition that we're using for the purposes of the series. But how would I distinguish you know this electronic will as envisaged by the Law Commission from, say, an online will? I mean, just you know, save in in your view, you're what's what's the difference? Well, they're kind of two different concepts that might even overlap. So if this did come out, an online will could potentially be an electronic will. But at the minute, as it stands, uh uh an online will is is essentially just um where you go online and fill in your information, that gives you uh a will to print out and and go get signed. Similar to if you're just to walk into WHSMS and get a you know bar a will pack and fill it in. Obviously, there's there are benefits, uh massive benefits that are addressed with online wills, um, and it just makes make them more accessible. And you can have elements of the validation on there that things that are being put in correctly. Um and it also for generally I think makes it easier for people to go in and update their will and change their circumstances and things. But yeah, that they aren't too distinct things that will have no overlap. But an online will is essentially a will that someone's at the minute gone on online, use their computer to kind of jeff their will. Yeah, beauty. So just to play that out, so essentially what you're describing is a paper will, but its creation has been managed online, usually by filling out a questionnaire. Um, or you know, as you say, it could be something you know formerly brought to WH Smiths, but typically people go to you know one of these, you know, there are many highly reputable uh providers, they'll fill out a questionnaire. Based on that questionnaire, they get a will document uh which they can print and then have sign and witness as they would any other. Yeah. And I think that's the key thing. That the thing that they've signed and printed is the will. So that's the will is physical on paper. Precisely. So so I think you know that's that's a that I think for the startup for 10 is how we would distinguish those two. As you point out, you know, you can certainly introduce a world in the future where they do overlap, and you could have an online will which is signed electronically, but we'll come to that scenario perhaps later. And then I'd also just like to distinguish between um what the way the Law Commission talks about an electronic will, and then maybe some other jurisdictions. I'm thinking here about uh some of the US states, for example, that have introduced uh electronic will legislation. And what it looks like to me is actually very similar to the regime we had in place during COVID, where they the remote witnessing provisions were relaxed, specifically by by enactment, by legislation, and it was possible to carry out that process via video. In America, um some states, that can create a valid will. What we're saying, well what the law commission is is proposing, is a little different from that, which is saying to paraphrase, you know, that could work, and it didn't work for us in extremes. Yeah, we needed a solution sharpish during COVID. That was specifically repealed by our parliament. So we know that isn't available to us anymore, and I think for good reasons. So although it can be convenient with current technology, it it isn't that difficult to suppose for video, and it will only get easier. So while it is a convenient solution, it's certainly not uh it's not anywhere as no as robust as the um as the solution being proposed by Law Commission. So it it seems to me what w what's being proposed in UK and Wales, England, Wales, is different in kind to online wills today, and what is has been envisaged in some other jurisdictions, Australia, some US states, Canada, for example. And to my mind, does set us up for the future in that it does seem to anticipate some of the challenges that are going to land quite soon. And it's also not overreaching in its in the way it's been constructed. In fact, it's quite flexible. So it's actually proposing that a lot of the details will be prescribed by regulations, not by an act, making it more flexible as the technology evolves. So it feels to me that this is quite a robust framework that you know could yeah, yeah, could sustain us for many decades if we implemented smart and right. Yeah, definitely. I I th I think on the point as well, just we might have touched on it, with electronic wills and the different parts of what could make a will electronic. What one point that it would be great to get some feedback on is certainly for any any any viewers, because I'd I'd love to be corrected on it, um, is if you wrote a will on a computer and signed it on a computer with a with a with a squiggle, like you might have done, or just put your squiggle on the PDF. And but that was done in the presence of other people, that that would still meet section nine of the wills that say, although it's been signed electronically, I would argue that that isn't an electronic will. Uh you'd still be able to print it out and have that one copy. So that it does kind of blur the lines what what is and what isn't electronic will. So I I don't know what what the people's thoughts would be. You raised a really great point. In fact, I'm hoping we will uh get into that in a bit more detail in the very next podcast where we go into uh the legal questions behind electronic wills and we actually walk through the provisions of section nine in a bit more detail. But I think to your point, that's exactly right. You know, uh it would be, I mean, just to tease this out, I think it is possible to construct an electronic will today with the proviso that the witnessing wouldn't be remote, but it could all be electronic if everyone is in the same place at the same time. It's a great point, but the question begs, would any lawyer want to test it with their client? Probably not. Yeah, but it's no but it but it is a great point, and and yeah, we will definitely tea tease that out as well. Look uh we're coming to time, and uh I I want to thank you both, but are there any other points that uh you think we should draw out? And we've covered a lot of material, but uh and we've teased up a lot of conversations for future episodes. But anything else you think we're missing or any other points you want to raise? I think we've put a lot of bases um to set the scene. One question that I'll propose, perhaps it's something that you could bring up in in the later episodes, if you like, is with all the benefits that electronic wills can offer, and and we've kind of agreed that it can offer a lot more security and trust around who made the will and in what order and that can reduce um potential fraud, should a paper will be able to revoke an electronic will? Because if you're securing your front door, if you like, and and we're adding all these things that that that add trust and validation, but then someone can then come in and just you know, just write a paper will that's that's dated later than that, we kind of lose all that trust and and security that we've we've built. So perhaps I'm not sure if it's um if it's something worth chatting about now, but it was certainly something I've been thinking about. And yeah, I think it would be good to get some thoughts on, either, either now or from from from the viewers or yeah, well no, you raised a great a great point, and I think that's one we will come to um especially in in store and chat and registration. But also you raised another point that I just want to highlight, which is for future episodes, we'll be publicizing them in advance, and we would love to get key questions that people have uh in advance, so we can try and address them in in the the series as we go on. You raise a good a good question, I'm sure there'll be many others, and the more feedback we can get from people, the more we can try to address specific concerns and questions as uh as we go through the series. So, with that, guys, I want to thank you for uh for joining us in this uh in the kickoff series. Um I hope people found this helpful. It took it is the start for us and for all of us, a journey that we're all going on to uh to develop uh safe, secure, reliable electronic wheels, and we hope you found this useful. Thanks everybody. Thank you both. Absolute pleasure.