Secure Integrated Communications Suite

在这个项目中，Etic实验室将为非营利性法律咨询部门开发一个安全集成通信套件（SICS），这是一个慈善机构社区，致力于确保经济拮据的人获得他们需要的支持，以进入英国司法系统。我们的平台将允许咨询服务提供者与客户聊天，并通过视频、音频或文本留言，安全地传输重要文件，并通过附带的电子邮件和文本通知设置约会。它还将支持建议提供者之间的点对点发现和交流，并为客户反馈提供门户。这个部门的工作从来没有像现在这样重要。由于新冠肺炎危机，前所未有的人在住房、债务、福利和就业等法律问题上寻求援助。咨询服务提供商正试图解决这一激增的需求，同时通过转向远程工作来保护他们的员工、客户和公众。在许多情况下，这意味着他们别无选择，只能采用Skype、Zoom或Facebook Messenger等专有视听信息平台，作为向客户提供服务的手段。然而，这些程序不具备法律咨询提供者所需的全部功能；它们也不符合这个经常与易受攻击的个人和敏感个人信息打交道的行业的隐私和安全要求。就目前的情况来看，该行业正被迫在其价值观上妥协，以继续为客户服务。SICS将通过将其生成的数据完全交给咨询部门及其客户来解决这些问题。这不仅可以确保敏感信息的安全，还可以使该行业利用平台产生的元数据（例如，与客户对话的长度、频率和目的）系统地评估其工作实践，支持慈善机构努力开发可持续的服务提供模式，以应对当前的挑战。通过将所有法律咨询服务提供商聚集在一个单一的通信平台上，SICS将为整个行业提供一个共享资源、建立社区和团结起来的基础，以确保它能够在这场危机中继续履行其社会使命，并进入未来几年。现在扩展该项目将使其他敏感服务提供商（出于道德和专业原因而避免使用广泛的专有平台）能够在一个安全的平台上为客户提供服务，因为他们知道，面对COVID-19大流行，他们选择的扩展业务的媒介不会损害他们的标准。此外，在项目迄今为止的对话中，我们清楚地认识到，在像我们这样的平台被推向市场之前，有些行动和服务是根本不可能的，我们将立即发挥作用，能够扭转这一局面。还不能忽视的是，随着这一流行病的二级影响开始形成，对我们在司法部门的同事提供服务的需求大幅增加。Etic Lab已经与各级法律部门的工作组合作，试图为无家可归、失业和福利制度等问题不可避免的增加做好准备。

For this project, Etic Lab will develop a Secure Integrated Communications Suite (SICS) for the not-for-profit legal advice sector, a community of charities dedicated to ensuring that people with limited means receive the support they need to access the UK justice system. Our platform will allow advice providers to chat with clients and leave messages via video, audio or text, to securely transfer important documents and to set appointments with accompanying email and text notifications. It will also support peer-to-peer discovery and communication between advice providers, as well as providing a portal for client feedback.The work of this sector has never been more vital than it is now. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, unprecedented numbers of people are seeking aid with legal issues involving housing, debt, welfare and employment, to name just a few. Advice providers are attempting to address this surge in demand whilst also protecting their staff, clients and the general public by pivoting to remote working. In many cases, this means they have had no choice but to adopt proprietary audio-visual messaging platforms such as Skype, Zoom or Facebook Messenger as a means of providing services to clients. However, these programs do not have the full range of functions required by legal advice providers; nor do they meet the privacy and security requirements of a sector which routinely works with vulnerable individuals and sensitive personal information. As things stand, the sector is being forced to compromise on its values in order to continue serving its clients.SICS would address these concerns by placing the data it produces solely in the hands of the advice sector and its clients. Not only would this ensure the security of sensitive information, it would also enable the sector to use the meta-data generated by the platform (for instance, the length, frequency and purpose of conversations with clients) to systematically evaluate its working practices, supporting charities in their efforts to develop sustainable models for service delivery equal to the challenges of the present. By bringing all legal advice providers together onto a single communications platform, SICS would provide a basis for the sector as a whole to share resources, build community, and come together to ensure that it is able to continue its social mission throughout this crisis and into the years ahead.Extending the project now will allow other providers of sensitive services, with attendant ethical and professional reasons for avoiding the widespread proprietary platforms, to deliver for their clients in a secure platform safe in the knowledge that their choice of medium for extending their business in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic has not compromised their standards. Further, in the conversations we have had thus far in the project it has been made clear to us that until a platform such as ours is brought to market there are certain actions and services that are simply not possible and we would have an immediate impact in being able to reverse that. It can also not go unnoticed that there has been a massive increase in demand for the services of our colleagues in the access to justice sector as the second order effects of the pandemics begin to take shape. Etic Lab has already been working with working groups at all levels of the legal sector to try to prepare for the inevitable rise in cases of people dealing with homelessness, unemployment and the welfare system, to name a few.