Lucknow: Writing a will could soon become safer and harder to manipulate, as a Lucknow University law faculty team has developed a mobile application that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to protect wills from tampering and help establish whether they were made voluntarily.The system, developed by law faculty professor Rakesh Kumar Singh, research scholar Varalika Nigam and advocate Saransh Chaturvedi along with IT-sector experts, has received an Indian patent.“The application can verify the authenticity of a will created through it. For example, it records the user’s facial expressions and keypad usage, along with other indicators that help determine whether the will was made under pressure or of the person’s own free will,” said Prof Rakesh.He said the system can analyse a person’s face, voice and fingerprint, as well as behavioural patterns such as typing speed and mouse movements. These checks are designed to identify unusual behaviour and flag the possibility that the person may be under pressure or that someone else is operating the system.“The will can be created in different formats, including written text, voice and video. The system’s AI can also examine the language of the will for unclear statements, contradictions and missing information, and compare it with relevant legal requirements,” he said.The research team said that once a person finalises the will, the system generates a unique digital code, known as a cryptographic hash, and records it on a blockchain along with a timestamp. In simple terms, this works like a digital fingerprint. If even a small part of the document is altered later, the digital fingerprint changes, making the alteration detectable.“There are several court cases in which wills are challenged on the ground that they were made under pressure and not out of the person’s free will. The technology aims to address issues commonly associated with paper wills, such as documents being lost, damaged, forged or altered,” Prof Rakesh said.He added that another feature of the proposed system relates to what happens after the death of the person who made the will.According to the university, the system is designed to verify the death through official records and other checks before releasing the will to authorised beneficiaries or representatives.
