Post Office scandal: Public inquiry to examine wrongful convictions
This case is one I&#x27;ve been watching for a while.<p>It&#x27;s astonishing. No money ever went missing. It merely _seemed_ to
have, and that was the entire foundation for what happened.<p>Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is
everyone&#x27;s. That&#x27;s software. We know and accept that in the industry.<p>&gt; The inquiry will look at whether the Post Office knew about faults
  in the IT system<p>It did, because hundreds of users reported them. It chose to attack
those users and bullheadedly believe that the system could not be
wrong.  Once their position was entrenched it became about &quot;How dare
mere mortals challenge technology?&quot;<p>It led to a staggering spectacle of bullying (through relentless legal
threats, stone-walling, harassment, and wrongful prosecution) that
caused many of the victims to suffer severe health effects or
contemplate suicide.<p>&gt; our first priority is that full, fair and final compensation is
  provided<p>Rubbish. This is about more than compensation. There is no _final_ to
this. It needs dragging out into the sunlight.<p>Sure, people lost their livelihoods, marriages, homes and years of
their lives over this. Deep pockets might cover it. But if mere
compensation is allowed to cover-up this episode a travesty will have
occurred.<p>The issue is about fundamental changes we need to make around our
relation to technology that allows grave errors made by weak-minded
people to hide behind it. As we put ever more trust in digital
forensics, telemetry, algorithmic policing, face-recognition,
automated fraud detection and so on, more innocent people will have
their lives ruined because we are falling into abject snivelling
surrender before technology, far beyond anything Ellul, Mumford, Freud
or Weber foresaw.<p>This speaks to a fundamental error in _how_ technology is being used.<p>&gt; lessons are learned so that such events can never happen again<p>Sadly, they will happen again and again and again, I think.