4 ms·

Fujitsu says it will pay compensation in UK Post Office scandal

43 points by anigbrowl 3y ago

rgovostes 3y ago
I have had a hard time understanding this story. It seems there were accusations of software glitches for decades that were never acknowledged, but the latest revelation has less to do with these glitches and more that Fujitsu employees had remote access to go in and make unauditable changes to accounts. So are there software flaws or not, and if so, of what nature?
- 15457345234 3y ago
  From my read of the court documents, there were/are software flaws but there seem also to be issues that the developers really didn't have a solid explanation for. Some of the remediations applied suggest that they suspected the issues related to local hardware configurations; changing touchscreen types from capacitive to resistive, changing cable from unshielded to shielded, stuff like that. That's also borne out by the fact that many locations (there are after all many many many post offices in the UK) operated without glitches but some locations suffered massive and repeating glitches. In addition, the UK post office used also be the phone company and in addition managed television transmitters and a national network of coax cables to connect TV/radio transmitters together. I'm guessing but I would suspect that there might be some overlap between (some) post office locations and unusually high levels of ambient electrical interference; such as post office locations being colocated with or nearby to small telco exchanges and tv/radio transmitter sites (which also used to be operated by the post office.)
vr46 3y ago
So much of this coverage emphasizes the software. And blames it. This is not fair - it was very clearly the actions of humans in Post Office Management with support of humans in Fujitsu that committed fraud in order to falsely convict innocent people. Headline-writing humans and editors should do better.
willvarfar 3y ago
I wish the opposition would campaign on, and actually tackle, standards in public life and standards in public procurement.
- sph 3y ago
  What makes you believe the opposition is any less corrupt than the Tories?
  - danw1979 3y ago
    We don’t, but in the game of political Play Your Cards Right, it’s way more probable the next lot have higher standards than the current administration.
    - sph 3y ago
      That's a very optimistic view of government I don't really agree with, nor has any historical basis whatsoever. For some inexplicable reason, most people believe this to be the case. "Surely whoever comes next can't be worse than their predecessor, right? Right?"
      - jen20 3y ago
        This is especially naive given that the problems with the Horizon system started in 1999, when the Labour Party was in power, and extended to the end of the coalition government, in which a Liberal Democrat was postal minister and a Conservative was Prime Minister. Part of the problem is that MPs are on average too old, too stupid, or too reactive to actually understand technology, but another part is that they are incapable almost entirely of engaging with a deep problem if it doesn’t have a soundbite for the Today show. “The Thick of It” was more of a documentary than many realise.
        sph 3y ago
        > Part of the problem is that MPs are on average too old, too stupid, or too reactive Politicians are the PE teachers in that old joke. If they had a minimum of competence in anything they do, they would have gotten a serious and honest job like everyone else.
ipsum2 3y ago
Background: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39010070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39010070
guappa 3y ago
The boss of Fujitsu in Japan had gone to talk to the UK ambassador and threatened that the UK branch would close down if Horizon wasn't quickly accepted (despite being a train wreck and everybody involved being aware of it). The UK government bent over to "save jobs". It's a story of widespread corruption and it seems most people will get away with it by claiming stuff like "I was told to trust the system, I had no reason not to" when their job was to talk to desperate people whose money kept disappearing and they kept to tell them "pay up or go to jail". A top manager returned 1400£ of his huge bonus so the conscience is clean. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j
- danw1979 3y ago
  > The boss of Fujitsu in Japan had gone to talk to the UK ambassador and threatened that the UK branch would close down if Horizon wasn't quickly accepted We don’t know the exact details of this diplomatic incident, but it’s very hard to believe Fujitsu would retreat from the entire UK market over one software project, albeit a high profile one. If there was a political party donor involved in this story it would be more believable.
  - aitchnyu 3y ago
    Is there a known example of foreign entity routing money to enriching UK politician?
amanzi 3y ago
I'm only just catching up on how serious this whole scandal was. I watched some of the hearing where the Fujitsu boss was apologising and talking about compensation. He wasn't willing to put a number on it just yet, but agreed they should be liable.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  I'm curious to see if they'll do a Japanese style apology where senior managers hold a press conference and actually say it's their fault, bow deeply etc. Japanese firms do cover-ups, PR, and damage control as much as anyone, but the Southeast Asian style of formal public apology is almost unknown in the west imho - it's much more common to see financial settlements without any admission of liability, or anodyne formulas like 'mistakes were made'. I can kinda see it happening in this case because it would deflect some of the blame away from people in the UK political establishment onto those naughty foreigners, bringing the episode to a tidy if embarrassing conclusion. But I can also see such an apology raising expectations for other corporate actors over the longer term.
  - sam_lowry_ 3y ago
    Fujitsu UK is Japanese-owned, but it was run independently by local management, AFAIC.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Quite, but if you read the story you'll notice the CEO of Fujitsu has weighed in as well.
asimpleusecase 3y ago
I suspect the only reason they are talking about paying damages is to avoid a huge lawsuit with punitive damages. Say they gave each sub postmaster convicted ( about 700 of them) a million each that would be far less than the billions that are quite possible in a judgement in court plus legal fees for a decade in court.
- dave333 3y ago
  Unless things have changed damages in UK courts are much smaller than is typically seen in US courts. Some victims have already accepted compensation and agreed they have no further claim.
127361 3y ago
From the article: "I wasn’t tech savvy at all back 20 years ago — they convinced me it was my fault,” she said, adding that the Post Office had "gaslit” her. That is absolutely horrific.
Natfan 3y ago
I wonder how FJ will compensate those who killed themselves over this scandal?
namaria 3y ago
I think this case represents a fundamental problem of early stage digital technologies in a civilization timescale. We are used to records painstakingly kept by thousands of hands representing a reality the State acts upon. We transferred the trust built over thousands of years of honing such systems over to highly automated digital representations produced by what amounts to hugely complex black box systems. We see instances of this problem every day where some 'helpless' clerk stonewalls us saying "the system says". We've automated and turbocharged what was already a Kafkaesque system - only now there is no one on top of what gets into the records. Just some inscrutable pile of code that might have been produced by someone thousands of miles away with no clue of the realities they engender.
- afandian 3y ago
  I heard that in the British system there’s a legal principle (or precedent?) that says that a computer system can be considered to do what its creators said it does. I can’t find a citation for this though. Does HN?
  - IronWolve 3y ago
    Theres talk to change the law, so that computer evidence isn't considered reliable by default. But its been talk for years, its only getting attention now. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-o...
  - d1sxeyes 3y ago
    It's not QUITE that directly, but it comes close. I think the Guardian article which was linked to in the sibling comment covers it quite well but basically: 1. Historically, mechanical tools are presumed to be working well. This makes things simpler. The example quoted by the Guardian is a good one: if someone wants to question the accuracy of a clock, it's on the person claiming the inaccuracy to prove their point. 2. In 1984, it became clear that computers are not just simple mechanical tools, and they were explicitly excluded from this assumption, by saying that computer evidence should be considered 'hearsay' (and therefore inadmissible) unless the prosecution can prove that the evidence is correct, either by a certificate from someone who can reasonably be expected to certify the correct functioning of that particular evidence, or by oral evidence. 3. This meant that anyone depending on the reliability of evidence from a computer (or piece of software, hardware, etc.) as part of their legal argument could be called upon to prove this, and the burden of proof lay with them (i.e.: as a defendant, I could require the prosecution to prove that the computer works as it is intended). 4. Following a review, it seems to be basically the conclusion that the requirements are inconsistent, unnecessarily onerous and time-consuming, and the way it was written was allowing criminals to get off on technicalities because the prosecution were not able to prove minor or irrelevant points about the functioning of the computer, and anyway other countries don't have any special rules about computers. You can read for yourself the recommendation here: https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/30/2016/08/No.138-Criminal-Law-Evidence-in-Criminal-Proceedings-Hearsay-and-Related-Topics-A-Consultation-Paper-1.pdf https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.a... (starting page 200 of the document, 215 of the PDF). 5. In 1999, the specific requirement for computer evidence to be treated as hearsay was removed. There's a subtle difference between what you said and the current state of affairs. It is still possible to challenge the accuracy of a computer system, but the burden of proof lies with the defence. It's not going to be good enough to say 'well I don't know what happened, it must be a computer glitch', and as a result, cause the prosecution to need to produce evidence that the terminal in the Post Office was working correctly, as well as all of the back end servers that may have been responsible in some part for producing the output. There's an extent to which I think this is reasonable. If I'm accused of fraud based on evidence recovered from a bank computer, it should not be the case that I can require the prosecution to prove that the bank's computers function correctly, and the evidence be thrown out in case the prosecution are unable to do so. The problem with the Horizon convictions is that in many cases, the evidence produced by computers was the only evidence. Also, as the Post Office has its own prosecutors, they could chase and prosecute cases which would not normally have been tried by the CPS due to lack of evidence. It's also clear that the Post Office bullied and threatened not just the sub-postmasters, but also journalists, to keep quiet about the existence of evidence which might throw into question the correct functioning of the system. This whole debacle is not primarily caused by the principle that you're referring to. The presumption that computers function correctly has undoubtedly saved billions of pounds, hours, and allowed a huge number of successful, correct convictions, which otherwise might have resulted in not guilty verdicts due to clever litigation, rather than actual innocence.

43 points by anigbrowl 3y ago

I have had a hard time understanding this story. It seems there were accusations of software glitches for decades that were never acknowledged, but the latest revelation has less to do with these glitches and more that Fujitsu employees had remote access to go in and make unauditable changes to accounts. So are there software flaws or not, and if so, of what nature?

15457345234 3y ago
From my read of the court documents, there were/are software flaws but there seem also to be issues that the developers really didn't have a solid explanation for. Some of the remediations applied suggest that they suspected the issues related to local hardware configurations; changing touchscreen types from capacitive to resistive, changing cable from unshielded to shielded, stuff like that. That's also borne out by the fact that many locations (there are after all many many many post offices in the UK) operated without glitches but some locations suffered massive and repeating glitches. In addition, the UK post office used also be the phone company and in addition managed television transmitters and a national network of coax cables to connect TV/radio transmitters together. I'm guessing but I would suspect that there might be some overlap between (some) post office locations and unusually high levels of ambient electrical interference; such as post office locations being colocated with or nearby to small telco exchanges and tv/radio transmitter sites (which also used to be operated by the post office.)

vr46 3y ago

So much of this coverage emphasizes the software. And blames it. This is not fair - it was very clearly the actions of humans in Post Office Management with support of humans in Fujitsu that committed fraud in order to falsely convict innocent people. Headline-writing humans and editors should do better.

willvarfar 3y ago

I wish the opposition would campaign on, and actually tackle, standards in public life and standards in public procurement.

sph 3y ago
What makes you believe the opposition is any less corrupt than the Tories?
- danw1979 3y ago
  We don’t, but in the game of political Play Your Cards Right, it’s way more probable the next lot have higher standards than the current administration.
  - sph 3y ago
    That's a very optimistic view of government I don't really agree with, nor has any historical basis whatsoever. For some inexplicable reason, most people believe this to be the case. "Surely whoever comes next can't be worse than their predecessor, right? Right?"
    - jen20 3y ago
      This is especially naive given that the problems with the Horizon system started in 1999, when the Labour Party was in power, and extended to the end of the coalition government, in which a Liberal Democrat was postal minister and a Conservative was Prime Minister. Part of the problem is that MPs are on average too old, too stupid, or too reactive to actually understand technology, but another part is that they are incapable almost entirely of engaging with a deep problem if it doesn’t have a soundbite for the Today show. “The Thick of It” was more of a documentary than many realise.
      - sph 3y ago
        > Part of the problem is that MPs are on average too old, too stupid, or too reactive Politicians are the PE teachers in that old joke. If they had a minimum of competence in anything they do, they would have gotten a serious and honest job like everyone else.

ipsum2 3y ago

Background: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39010070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39010070

guappa 3y ago

The boss of Fujitsu in Japan had gone to talk to the UK ambassador and threatened that the UK branch would close down if Horizon wasn't quickly accepted (despite being a train wreck and everybody involved being aware of it). The UK government bent over to "save jobs". It's a story of widespread corruption and it seems most people will get away with it by claiming stuff like "I was told to trust the system, I had no reason not to" when their job was to talk to desperate people whose money kept disappearing and they kept to tell them "pay up or go to jail". A top manager returned 1400£ of his huge bonus so the conscience is clean. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j

danw1979 3y ago
> The boss of Fujitsu in Japan had gone to talk to the UK ambassador and threatened that the UK branch would close down if Horizon wasn't quickly accepted We don’t know the exact details of this diplomatic incident, but it’s very hard to believe Fujitsu would retreat from the entire UK market over one software project, albeit a high profile one. If there was a political party donor involved in this story it would be more believable.
- aitchnyu 3y ago
  Is there a known example of foreign entity routing money to enriching UK politician?

amanzi 3y ago

I'm only just catching up on how serious this whole scandal was. I watched some of the hearing where the Fujitsu boss was apologising and talking about compensation. He wasn't willing to put a number on it just yet, but agreed they should be liable.

anigbrowl 3y ago
I'm curious to see if they'll do a Japanese style apology where senior managers hold a press conference and actually say it's their fault, bow deeply etc. Japanese firms do cover-ups, PR, and damage control as much as anyone, but the Southeast Asian style of formal public apology is almost unknown in the west imho - it's much more common to see financial settlements without any admission of liability, or anodyne formulas like 'mistakes were made'. I can kinda see it happening in this case because it would deflect some of the blame away from people in the UK political establishment onto those naughty foreigners, bringing the episode to a tidy if embarrassing conclusion. But I can also see such an apology raising expectations for other corporate actors over the longer term.
- sam_lowry_ 3y ago
  Fujitsu UK is Japanese-owned, but it was run independently by local management, AFAIC.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Quite, but if you read the story you'll notice the CEO of Fujitsu has weighed in as well.

asimpleusecase 3y ago

I suspect the only reason they are talking about paying damages is to avoid a huge lawsuit with punitive damages. Say they gave each sub postmaster convicted ( about 700 of them) a million each that would be far less than the billions that are quite possible in a judgement in court plus legal fees for a decade in court.

dave333 3y ago
Unless things have changed damages in UK courts are much smaller than is typically seen in US courts. Some victims have already accepted compensation and agreed they have no further claim.

127361 3y ago

From the article: "I wasn’t tech savvy at all back 20 years ago — they convinced me it was my fault,” she said, adding that the Post Office had "gaslit” her. That is absolutely horrific.

Natfan 3y ago

I wonder how FJ will compensate those who killed themselves over this scandal?

namaria 3y ago

I think this case represents a fundamental problem of early stage digital technologies in a civilization timescale. We are used to records painstakingly kept by thousands of hands representing a reality the State acts upon. We transferred the trust built over thousands of years of honing such systems over to highly automated digital representations produced by what amounts to hugely complex black box systems. We see instances of this problem every day where some 'helpless' clerk stonewalls us saying "the system says". We've automated and turbocharged what was already a Kafkaesque system - only now there is no one on top of what gets into the records. Just some inscrutable pile of code that might have been produced by someone thousands of miles away with no clue of the realities they engender.

afandian 3y ago
I heard that in the British system there’s a legal principle (or precedent?) that says that a computer system can be considered to do what its creators said it does. I can’t find a citation for this though. Does HN?
- IronWolve 3y ago
  Theres talk to change the law, so that computer evidence isn't considered reliable by default. But its been talk for years, its only getting attention now. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-on-computer-evidence-to-avoid-horizon-repeat-ministers-urged https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/update-law-o...
- d1sxeyes 3y ago
  It's not QUITE that directly, but it comes close. I think the Guardian article which was linked to in the sibling comment covers it quite well but basically: 1. Historically, mechanical tools are presumed to be working well. This makes things simpler. The example quoted by the Guardian is a good one: if someone wants to question the accuracy of a clock, it's on the person claiming the inaccuracy to prove their point. 2. In 1984, it became clear that computers are not just simple mechanical tools, and they were explicitly excluded from this assumption, by saying that computer evidence should be considered 'hearsay' (and therefore inadmissible) unless the prosecution can prove that the evidence is correct, either by a certificate from someone who can reasonably be expected to certify the correct functioning of that particular evidence, or by oral evidence. 3. This meant that anyone depending on the reliability of evidence from a computer (or piece of software, hardware, etc.) as part of their legal argument could be called upon to prove this, and the burden of proof lay with them (i.e.: as a defendant, I could require the prosecution to prove that the computer works as it is intended). 4. Following a review, it seems to be basically the conclusion that the requirements are inconsistent, unnecessarily onerous and time-consuming, and the way it was written was allowing criminals to get off on technicalities because the prosecution were not able to prove minor or irrelevant points about the functioning of the computer, and anyway other countries don't have any special rules about computers. You can read for yourself the recommendation here: https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/30/2016/08/No.138-Criminal-Law-Evidence-in-Criminal-Proceedings-Hearsay-and-Related-Topics-A-Consultation-Paper-1.pdf https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.a... (starting page 200 of the document, 215 of the PDF). 5. In 1999, the specific requirement for computer evidence to be treated as hearsay was removed. There's a subtle difference between what you said and the current state of affairs. It is still possible to challenge the accuracy of a computer system, but the burden of proof lies with the defence. It's not going to be good enough to say 'well I don't know what happened, it must be a computer glitch', and as a result, cause the prosecution to need to produce evidence that the terminal in the Post Office was working correctly, as well as all of the back end servers that may have been responsible in some part for producing the output. There's an extent to which I think this is reasonable. If I'm accused of fraud based on evidence recovered from a bank computer, it should not be the case that I can require the prosecution to prove that the bank's computers function correctly, and the evidence be thrown out in case the prosecution are unable to do so. The problem with the Horizon convictions is that in many cases, the evidence produced by computers was the only evidence. Also, as the Post Office has its own prosecutors, they could chase and prosecute cases which would not normally have been tried by the CPS due to lack of evidence. It's also clear that the Post Office bullied and threatened not just the sub-postmasters, but also journalists, to keep quiet about the existence of evidence which might throw into question the correct functioning of the system. This whole debacle is not primarily caused by the principle that you're referring to. The presumption that computers function correctly has undoubtedly saved billions of pounds, hours, and allowed a huge number of successful, correct convictions, which otherwise might have resulted in not guilty verdicts due to clever litigation, rather than actual innocence.