Court rule that fuelled Post Office's prosecution rampage(computerweekly.com) |
Court rule that fuelled Post Office's prosecution rampage(computerweekly.com) |
In the middle of the prosecutions they even settled with some post masters who were able to independently find that the Horizon system worked incorrectly and then they continued to go after other post masters who hadn't figured it out.
The Post Office Scandal [1] is not some story about the dangers of computers being wrong. It's a story about how covering up evidence can allow you to gain a wrongful conviction.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
If a system that could be used to criminally convict someone of a serious crime is in place it should be held to a similar standard of systems such as flight computers or self-driving cars.
We must verify that the evaluations it makes are correct and are based on true actuals not errors. As modern software becomes more ingrained into our live, we will have to have to clamp down on the wild west of software to protect people because the consequences could be dire.
We already do the same thing with the gas and electric in our homes so why does that not extended to ALPRs and auditing systems ect.
For systems with high standards like aircraft there's nothing that stops somebody from say removing a door and then just not recording that it happened. It doesn't matter how many checklists you have for aircraft if they're not followed.
It just doesn't matter what verification processes you have if they're not followed. The court rule does not affect this.