The advent of technology over the last two decades has heralded a movement towards the digitisation of processes across society. The narrative of digitisation has taken a foothold in societal thinking about designing processes, yet the idea of ‘paperwork’ in the physical form continues to be commonly experienced, particularly in the context of ‘paper monsters’ like businesses, government processes, and the judicial system.

In this episode of ALTRnative perspectives, Aniruddh Nigam speaks to Aditya Patel of Leegality to talk about the implications of ‘going paperless’. They discuss what it means for a process to be paperless, what are the reasons that hold back businesses and organisations from designing paperless processes and how questions of access are often ignored when thinking of ‘going paperless’.

They also discuss whether there is a normative value to transitioning from analog to digital processes and why systems continue to rely on paper-based processes despite the presence of technology-based alternatives. They go on to discuss this particularly in the context of the three ‘paper monsters’ who are the largest users of paper in society, and discuss a framework to think about how a process can be reimagined in a paperless form, particularly for businesses and commercial transactions.

ALTRnative Perspectives is a podcast by the Centre for Applied Law and Technology Research (ALTR), Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. This episode has been developed by Aniruddh Nigam.