These findings could easily apply to all regulations across the world. Though the implications are profound, the sheer scale of the socioeconomic effect is not well understood. 

For example, child abuse impacts around 40 million children a year. The UK is a leader in child protection regulation. But how is this still represented in paper-based documents? In 2019, UK child protection regulation involved 21 Acts of Parliament and two Statutes spread over a period from 1970 to 2017. This means over 200,000 organizations involved in safeguarding children in the UK; each needs to contextually synthesize the regulation spread over 23 documents into practical procedures. Not only is this costly and time-consuming for each organization, the actual translations result in many versions of the truth.    

Now examine one element of this regulation, identifying possible child abuse in context to “those who want to take shortcuts to do so” could be catastrophic.

As paper-based documents and their web content equivalents cannot be measured in the way they are applied in practice, in identifying possible child abuse the government must manually collect data. Once a year, the government publishes child abuse statistics, which are underpinned by data whose quality cannot be assured. The dependency upon such weak lag indicators inhibits governments’ capabilities.    

Regulatory inequality is pervasive and unacceptable

Paper-based documents are an unsuitable medium for helping people to understand and apply regulation in practice. The use of these documents, though, has cultivated over a long period of time a huge ecosystem of professionals that translates the regulation for practical application. These intermediaries are lawyers and consultants who ironically often translate the regulations into paper-based procedures. Naturally, those organizations with the deepest pockets can afford tier 1 lawyers and consultants. However, at the other end of spectrum, inequality is disproportionately hitting those that cannot afford the costs of these intermediaries. Consequently, due to a lack of understanding when it comes to regulations, many people and organizations are at a serious disadvantage.

Regulatory inequality is fundamentally wrong yet is pervasive in every country around the world.

Regulatory equality is a level-up strategy  

The digitization of regulation is the means to achieve regulatory equality. This is a paradigm shift towards a single source of truth, which is the only means to level up at scale the way regulation is understood and applied in practice, while marginalizing misinterpretation, disparities and non-compliance.

As regulatory digitization requires new technology and methods, it is equally important to dispel popular alternatives. 

Regulatory equality cannot be achieved through training       

This is because human memory cannot accurately recall and apply the volume and diversity of choices, pathways and outcomes, made more difficult through irregular use and regulatory change. 

Regulatory equality cannot be achieved through artificial intelligence   

This is because Artificial Intelligence machine learning cannot be empowered to upend and change regulatory rules.

Regulatory equality cannot be achieved through software code