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Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start” and hidden from lawyers of wrongly convicted UK postal workers (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/unitedkingdom

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"All the bugs and errors have been known at one level or not, for many, many years. Right from the very start of deployment of the system, there were bugs and errors and defects, which were well-known to all parties," said Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division. Ars Trending Video

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.

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[–] peter 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Fujitsu isn't shying away from taking the blame on this which is interesting. Are they legitimately just "doing the right thing" or is there a benefit for them to just own this?

[–] apis@beehaw.org 8 points 10 months ago

Possibly attempting some "we've changed now" reputation-saving. They have no hope of winning any cases against them, and probably not even of minor points of the cases.

[–] mannycalavera 4 points 10 months ago

It's been well known that Fujitsu are to blame, there's no benefit to them pretending otherwise and fighting any of this. I think they've put aside money to help with compensation claims as well so I think it's reputation damage control and for the sake of future projects they are doing this. On some level, it's at least good to see they are doing this but I do wonder why they didn't before.

Also, Fujitsu being open about the issues forces the Civil Service and the government to be open as well. Clearly Fujitsu are to blame but so are those other two.

[–] JoBo 3 points 10 months ago

They've been lying about it for over 25 years. This is because the evidence against them is now overwhelming and the only option left is to admit it.