Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start”

flop_leash_973@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 538 points – Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start”
arstechnica.com

A lot of people in the UK prosecutors offices and post office management should be going to prison.

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That goes back to 1999, when the Horizon software system was installed in post offices by Fujitsu subsidiary International Computers Limited. From 1999 to 2015, Fujitsu's faulty accounting software aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses who were accused of theft or fraud when the software wrongly made it appear that money was missing from their branches.

During the prosecutions, courts hearing cases against postal employees "were not told of 29 bugs identified as early as 1999 in the system it built," The Guardian wrote in a summary of Patterson's testimony today. The article said:

When bugs were acknowledged, witness statements from Fujitsu staff due to be heard in court were then edited by the Post Office as it sought to maintain the line that the system was working well as it pursued innocent people through the courts.

Thanks, I was wondering what this was

That really sounds like those that edited those testimonies and those that ordered the edits should be going to prison because holy shit that's bad

You could try out this crazy new thing called reading the article

Far too many writers turn two sentences of information into two pages of waffle.

Sure, and that's what I would have done next if someone didn't extract the key detail I was looking for

When a story is relevant to me I'll still go and read the article. Otherwise I can get the details I need, as well as extra context, from the comment sections