The application of Artificial Intelligence in the Legal Audit of the Land Registry was presented today Wednesday by the Minister of Digital Governance Dimitris Papastergiou and the Deputy Minister of Digital Governance Konstantinos Kyranakis. With this tool, the Land Registry becomes the first public body to use Artificial Intelligence for administrative decision-making and is expected to significantly speed up the process of legal control of contracts by the heads of the competent services.

Until today, the superiors they read the entire contractswhich could be as long as 200 pages, in order to locate the necessary evidence and apply the rules of legal review. This process was time-consuming, with the average fluctuating around at 30 minutes per contract.

The new AI tool, which is already being piloted for superintendents across the state, can:

  • To read the text of the contract in natural language,
  • To identify the type of act, to identify the elements required under the legal rules,
  • To implement an automatic check of the completeness of the details of a contract, such as updates and the ENFIA statement,
  • Create an automatic recommendation to the supervisor to approve or reject contract elements.

Using the new tool, the processing time is reduced to less than half or even 1/3 according to the tests so far. This implies significant time and cost savings for the State, as a procedure that currently costs 15 euros, could cost up to 30 minutes.

It is worth noting that he will continue to make the final decision the responsible supervisor, however, the tool will greatly facilitate his work, providing a ready-made suggestion that will highlight exactly the points of the contract that need attention.

This tool was created by the Ministry of Digital Governance at no cost, is very simple to use without requiring further training of users and was implemented using Microsoft Azure Open AI technology. The development and hosting of the system was done with the support of Microsoft, ensuring the high technological quality and reliability of the tool.

The Minister of Digital Governance Dimitris Papastergiou stated: “As the Ministry of Digital Governance we are working to utilize every possibility of Artificial Intelligence which makes the everyday life of citizens and businesses simpler. This is also proven by the successful course of the first AI applications such as mAigov and mAiGreece. We are now also coming to the Land Registry, the largest IT project being carried out in the country, to integrate AI. This is something particularly innovative, visionary. TN will not make decisions but will significantly help the officials involved, speed up procedures. We aim for faster legal control while simultaneously upgrading legal certainty. The Land Registry has not only reached its completion stage by solving a decades-old problem, but by utilizing emerging technologies it is becoming an exemplary public body. An example of how we can, with the introduction of AI, free up important forces and resources of the Public Administration”.

For his part, the Deputy Minister of Digital Governance, responsible for the Land Registry, Konstantinos Kyranakis pointed out: “Today we present the first public body in Greece that applies Artificial Intelligence for administrative decisions. In cooperation with the heads of the Land Registry and with developers of the Ministry of Digital Governance, we have presented a tool that greatly speeds up the process of legal review for a contract. A process that can last from half an hour to two hours, is reduced to approximately 10 minutes and the cost from 15 euros currently paid by the Greek state per proposal, is reduced to less than 30 euro cents. So we are talking about a huge time saving and cost reduction with benefit to the citizen”.

In the meantime, Mr. Kyranakis announced that among the ministry’s goals is the use of the TN model for the restoration of burned areas. “From satellite photos, we can identify areas that have been burned from previous years and “run” algorithms that see the speed with which the reforestation takes place, possibly if there is illegal construction and various other information.”

The president of the Hellenic Land Registry, Stelios Sakaretsios, underlined: “What we must emphasize is that Artificial Intelligence does not replace human judgement, but strengthens it. It enables our managers to focus on the most important elements of a contract, make faster and more informed decisions, and ultimately serve citizens more effectively. The future of Land Registry is digital and innovative. Our goal is to continue investing in technologies that will improve our operation and ensure the provision of high-quality services to citizens.” As he pointed out, the staff of the legal audit service of the Land Registry has been trained and added that with this digital tool it is possible to control the flow of work (how many decisions are issued by each supervisor, each registrar, how many suggestions are made) and so an incentive may also be given, a productivity bonus, which based on objective criteria, the best executives of the organization may be rewarded with a bonus that probably reaches 15% of their salary.