title: when software made by faulty humans is believed to be made by god and never wrong (this won’t happen again with AI will it? (sure it will and it already has with AI powered face recognition software blaming the wrong person for the crime))
or: when faulty software destroys people’s lifes
or: British Post Office Horizon IT Fujitsu accounting software error scandal
or: what happens if a people believe in software and computers to be always correct, without any know how of software development and quality testing
What did Paula do wrong?
Instead of spear heading investigions, she wanted to portray the British state owned Post Office ltd. company as a flawless machine, same reason why MANY companies rather don’t want to be named after ransomeware breach (don’t want to lose the trust of the customers)
- “The British Post Office scandal, also called the Horizon IT scandal, involved Post Office Limited pursuing thousands of innocent subpostmasters for shortfalls in their accounts, which had in fact been caused by faults in Horizon, accounting software developed and maintained by Fujitsu.
- Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 subpostmasters were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting based on faulty Horizon data, with about 700 of these prosecutions carried out by the Post Office. Other subpostmasters were prosecuted but not convicted,
- forced to cover Horizon shortfalls with their own money,
- or had their contracts terminated.
- The court cases,
- criminal convictions,
- imprisonments,
- loss of livelihoods and homes,
- debts, and bankruptcies took a heavy toll on the victims and their families,
- leading to stress, illness, family breakdown,
- and at least four suicides.”
- ” In January 2024, a four-part television drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, was broadcast on ITV after which the scandal became a major news story and political issue” (src)
- “As of January 2024, the Post Office is the subject of an inquiry into the errors in its Horizon IT system which led to several hundred postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted for theft,[5] in what has been described as one of biggest miscarriages of justice in UK legal history.[6][7]” (src)
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