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Home Office Acknowledges Issues with Facial Recognition Technology for Black and Asian Individuals

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Ministers are under pressure to implement more robust safeguards for facial recognition technology, as the Home Office has acknowledged that it may mistakenly identify Black and Asian individuals more frequently than white people in certain contexts.

Recent tests conducted by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) on how this technology functions within police national databases revealed that “some demographic groups are likely to be incorrectly included in search results,” according to the Home Office.

The Police and Crime Commissioner stated that the release of the NPL’s results “reveals concerning underlying bias” and urged caution regarding plans for a nationwide implementation.

These findings were made public on Thursday, shortly after Police Minister Sarah Jones characterized the technology as “the most significant advancement since DNA matching.”

Facial recognition technology analyzes individuals’ faces and cross-references the images against a watchlist of known or wanted criminals. It can be employed to scrutinize live footage of people passing in front of cameras, match faces with wanted persons, or assist police in targeting individuals on surveillance.

Images of suspects can be compared against police, passport, or immigration databases to identify them and review their backgrounds.

Analysts who evaluated the Police National Database’s retrospective facial recognition tool at lower settings discovered that “white subjects exhibited a lower false positive identification rate (FPIR) (0.04%) compared to Asian subjects (4.0%) and Black subjects (5.5%).”

Further testing revealed that Black women experienced notably high false positives. “The FPIR for Black male subjects (0.4%) is lower than that for Black female subjects (9.9%),” the report detailed.

The Police and Crime Commissioners Association stated that these findings reflect internalized bias. “This indicates that, in certain scenarios, Black and Asian individuals are more prone to incorrect matches than their white counterparts. Although the terminology is technical, it is evident that this technology is being integrated into police operations without adequate safeguards,” the report noted.

The statement, signed by APCC leaders Darryl Preston, Alison Rowe, John Tizard, and Chris Nelson, raised concerns why these findings were not disclosed sooner and shared with Black and Asian communities.

The report concluded: “While there is no evidence of adverse effects in individual cases, this is due to chance rather than a systematic approach. System failures have been known for a while, but the information was not conveyed to the communities impacted and key stakeholders.”

The government has initiated a 10-week public consultation aimed at facilitating more frequent usage of the technology. The public will be asked if police should have permission to go beyond records and access additional databases, such as images from passports and driving licenses, to track criminals.

Civil servants are collaborating with police to create a new national facial recognition system that will house millions of images.

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Charlie Welton, head of policy and campaigns at Liberty, stated: “The racial bias indicated by these statistics demonstrates that allowing police to utilize facial recognition without sufficient safeguards leads to actual negative consequences. There are pressing questions regarding how many individuals of color were wrongly identified in the thousands of monthly searches utilizing this biased algorithm and the ramifications it might have.”

“This report further underscores that this powerful and opaque technology cannot be deployed without substantial safeguards to protect all individuals, which includes genuine transparency and significant oversight. Governments must halt the accelerated rollout of facial recognition technology until protections are established that prioritize our rights, aligning with public expectations.”

Former cabinet minister David Davis expressed worries after police officials indicated that cameras could be installed at shopping centers, stadiums, and transport hubs to locate wanted criminals. He told the Daily Mail: “Brother, welcome to the UK. It is evident that the Government is implementing this dystopian technology nationwide. There is no way such a significant measure could proceed without a comprehensive and detailed discussion in the House of Commons.”

Officials argue that the technology is essential for apprehending serious criminals, asserting that there are manual safeguards embedded within police training, operational guidelines, and practices that require trained personnel to visually evaluate all potential matches derived from the police national database.

A Home Office representative said: “The Home Office takes these findings seriously and has already acted. The new algorithm has undergone independent testing and has shown no statistically significant bias. It will be subjected to further testing and evaluation early next year.”

“In light of the significance of this issue, we have requested the Office of the Inspector General and the Forensic Regulator to review the application of facial recognition by law enforcement. They will evaluate the effectiveness of the mitigation measures, and the National Council of Chiefs of Police backs this initiative.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Seven Home Office Gadgets to Boost Your Productivity

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With less than half of us still working from home to some degree, consider investing in products that enhance both your health and productivity.

SIT Comfortably with Aeron Office Chairs

Herman Miller Aeron Office Chair – Photo Credit: Herman Miller

Prolonged sitting can be hazardous. Personally, I’ve dealt with three office chair-related injuries in my career, including tennis elbow.

However, ever since purchasing the Herman Miller Aeron chair (with my own money), I’ve remained injury-free.

The secret to this comfort lies in its pellicle mesh. It supports your body as if you’re receiving a massage from a skilled therapist.

Aeron Office Chair

Rock Out with ELAC Debut Connex

ELAC Debut Connex Adsum Speaker – Photo Credit: ELAC

Desktop speakers provide a break from headphones, and around here, loud music triggers happy hour (5 PM to 6 PM).

If you’re looking for audio that’s both pleasing to the ears and the eyes, ELAC’s Debut Connex is a top contender.

They come with various ports for connectivity and also support Bluetooth for wireless use.

ELAC Debut Connex Adsum

KeyChron Q14 Max: A Mechanical Marvel

KeyChron Q14 Max Mechanical Keyboard – Photo Credit: KeyChron

In the mechanical keyboard realm, keyclones can be both a gateway drug and a controversial choice, given that they’re preassembled.

As someone who types for a living, I was hesitant until I discovered the Q14 Max.

The unique “Southpaw” layout aids left-handers with number entry, while the extra space ensures better wrist position and comfort.

KeyChron Q14 Max

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Experience Ultimate Flexibility with Jarvis Standing Desk

Herman Miller’s Fully Jarvis Standing Desk – Photo Credit: Herman Miller

Sitting too long can lead to serious health issues, including early onset diabetes and potential longevity concerns, according to NHS data.

While regular breaks can help, I prefer not to take any chances.

There are various standing desk options available, from risers to full-sized desks, but I appreciate the sleek design and eco-friendliness of the Fully Jarvis bamboo standing desk.

It offers programmable height options, organized cable management, and operates quietly.

Recent studies suggest that standing can enhance focus and productivity.

Fully Jarvis Standing Desk

Connect Seamlessly with ASUS ProArt Monitors

ASUS ProART Display PA279CRV Computer Monitor – Photo Credit: ASUS

If you don’t have an AI assistant yet, are you truly working efficiently? While I’m still skeptical about AI-generated writing, I find it incredibly useful for tasks such as data organization and automated coding.

That’s why my next desk upgrade will likely include an additional monitor.

This ProArt model is affordable and performs exceptionally well, making it a fantastic first monitor for creative professionals. The display is sharp, bright, and color accurate.

Featuring a 27-inch (69cm) screen and versatile connectivity options, it’s also ergonomically designed for easy rotation into portrait mode, making it an ideal companion for digital assistants.

ASUS ProART Display PA279CRV

Elevate Your Setup with Hexcal Studio

Hexcal Studio Monitor Stand – Image Credit: Hexcal

Most monitors and their standard stands fail to align with eye level, which can lead to neck strain and lower back pain.

While monitor arms are an option, they can be cumbersome to install. A desktop shelf that elevates your monitor to a comfortable height not only alleviates strain but also provides additional desk space.

This premium monitor stand serves a dual purpose as cable management and a docking station, offering extra USB ports for your workstation.

With adjustable feet and wireless charging capabilities, it even includes eight power sockets on the back for streamlined connectivity.

Hexcal Studio

Enjoy the Blessings of Apple AirPods Pro 2

Apple AirPods Pro 2 Wireless Earphones – Photo Credit: Apple

If you’re part of the Apple ecosystem, the AirPods Pro 2 are essential for a productive work routine.

They effectively drown out the noise of a bustling environment.

With transparency mode, you can stay aware of your surroundings by reducing noise cancellation when someone addresses you.

The AirPods offer seamless switching between devices at the touch of a button.

Additionally, they come with adaptive equalizer features, spatial audio, and hearing aid capabilities. Plus, the sound quality is exceptional.

AirPods Pro 2

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Google Addresses Fox’s Incursion on the Roof of Its £1 Billion London Office

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Aiming to be a cutting-edge office in central London for Google over the coming decades, the new £1 billion headquarters faces challenges with local foxes, one of the oldest known nuisances to humans.

Valpin assumed control of the rooftop garden at the so-called “Craper of Land” in Kings Cross, which influenced the construction, though the company reported that the impact was “minimal.”

The initial report of fox activity Newsletter London Centric was verified by a source with knowledge of the construction. They relayed to the Guardian that the situation had been observed for three years, starting when foxes began to dig dens on well-maintained grounds.

“There are small holes in the garden,” they mentioned. “We’ve seen her around the building, even from the fifth floor.”

Others reported finding fox droppings on the property of the structure designed by Thomas Heatherwick.




The rooftop garden is estimated to hold 40,000 tonnes of soil and 250 trees. Photo: Tim Robberts/Getty Images

Mosh Latifi, co-founder of Ecocare, a pest control firm based in London, noted they can’t stay away from rodent populations.

“Foxes thrive off rodents. We don’t live more than three meters from the nearest rat,” he remarked, explaining that they have spotted the fox in a building where workers seek out leftover food.

Leaky pipes or plentiful food from local establishments might be sustaining the foxes, suggested another London pest control expert who requested anonymity. “London is a vast playground for foxes; they’ll go just about anywhere,” he stated.

Do you have any information about this story? Email investigations.contact@theguardian.com or use Signal or WhatsApp to message (UK) +44 7721 857 348.

A spokesperson for Google mentioned: “Sightings of foxes at construction sites are quite common, and our King’s Cross project is no exception. Foxes have occasionally been seen on-site, though their presence has been limited and had little effect on the construction progress.”

According to searches using the company’s own search engine, effective ways to deter foxes include removing food sources, installing secure fencing, and sealing any gaps.

This isn’t the first time a costly London construction has faced such an issue. In 2011, a fox named Romeo was discovered at a site. He was found living in the shard, surviving on leftover scraps from construction workers.

Romeo was captured and, after a health check, was released back into the wild.

Facebook also had to deal with a fox family at their Menlo Park headquarters, which gained popularity on social media with a series of stickers introduced for the Messenger app.

Plans for the new Google building were unveiled in 2013, marking it as the first fully owned and designed site by the company outside the United States. The 11-story structure will host up to 7,000 employees.

The 300-meter-long rooftop garden extends along the building, wrapping around the seventh to eleventh floors. It is estimated to contain 40,000 tonnes of soil to support 250 trees, all strategically placed. The garden aims to attract bees, bats, birds, and butterflies, with areas designated for dining, lounge chairs, a fitness zone, and even an indoor pool.

Currently under construction since 2018, the nearly 1 million square foot building is expected to be completed later this year.

In 2022, a topping-off ceremony featuring non-alcoholic pims and exquisite canapés was attended by London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Keir Starmer, representing the Holborn and St Pancras constituencies.

“This project signifies a robust confidence in London, our community, and our flourishing tech sector,” Khan commented at the event.

This article was updated on June 10, 2025, clarifying that foxes are wild animals rather than pests. Additionally, Menlo Park is in the San Francisco Bay Area and not in San Francisco itself.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Elon Musk targets an opaque US government office

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Federal employees in a lesser-known office dedicated to high-tech and consulting services were working when Elon Musk first tweeted about the agency on the afternoon of February 3rd.

“The group has been deleted.” The mask was written.

The world's wealthiest man had responded to a tweet from a right-wing activist who mistakenly claimed that the 18th floor within the General Services Agency (GSA) was a left and right cell within the government. Activists accused the 18th floor of creating a programme that would take care of bureaucrats to prepare people's tax returns. This was one of several false claims about the offices circulating on X, the social media platform Musk owns and spends much of his day.

Musk's tweet quickly sparked widespread confusion on the 18th floor. This is not a radical leftist cabal, but is tasked with partnering with government agencies to consult and develop software solutions. Former staff and current GSA employees described the 18th floor as a workforce focused on providing high-tech services and improving efficiency within the bureaucracy. Mask's so-called “government efficiency” (DOGE) is designed to perform accurately.

When Musk insisted on deletion, the partner agency was already in work and was hoping for the office's help on civic technology projects, which are key to updating the business. Will they still get that help? What does “delete” mean? What will happen to the technical tools 18F was building? According to three former workers, staff at the sub-agency were unable to get a definitive answer from the leadership of the new Musk Alliance and were unsure what to tell the other institutions.

The confusion lasts for several weeks. On Saturday, March 1st, staff on the 18th floor received an email around 1am, informing them that everything would be fired and closed “in an explicit direction from the top level of both the administration and the GSA leadership.”

The 18F episode fits a common pattern that appears to be amplifying masks by ingesting misinformation online. It is also a window into the influence of right-wing media and activists on Musk when he attacks and disbands some of the government that he believes does not fit the ideological worldview.

For a week after cutting the 18F, the recently appointed director of GSA's Technology Transformation Services, which oversees the 18F, held a meeting explaining the decision. Thomas Shed, a 28-year-old former Tesla software engineer and Musk's ally who sent the mass layoff email, told staff that the 18th floor had been shut down. Employees' hourly wages were too high And external consultants will be cheaper. Shedd did not respond directly to requests for comment on this article.

“After a thorough review of the 18th floor, the leadership of the GSA has determined that the business unit is not in line with President EOS, following consent from the administration and all OPM guidelines.

The explanation, according to former staff, not only misunderstands how the 18th floor operates and how its cost structure operates, but also ignores the frequent savings of agents by advising private vendors on costs and unnecessary contracts. Instead, former employees and current staff at GSA thought the layoffs were politically motivated.

“The only reason I can see when 18F is chosen to be eliminated in front of other offices is to make Elon Musk happy,” said a GSA employee who spoke anonymously out of fear of retaliation.

Misleading tweets and musk destiny workers dedicated to government efficiency

The 18th floor worked with various government agencies to create popular services, but little known to the public. The group quietly helped create dozens of services each year for various stations, including the IRS direct file free tax return system. Many 18F software projects, including streamlining government weather websites for easy use in the event of natural disasters, have a clear intention to make government services more efficient and reduce taxpayer costs.

When Musk claimed he “deleted” 18F, he was retweeting a February 3 post from right-wing activist Alex Rorsso, producer of conservative media influencer Benny Johnson. Musk of X, and the one courted by Donald Trump's administration. he I'm working As a paid consultant for Musk's Super PAC, he is also a fan. His first post on X profile is a 2023 photo of a mask and laughing, pinned to the top so that others don&#39t push out in the sight.

Lorusso's post allegedly claiming that the 18th floor is “in charge of preparing people&#39s tax returns,” suggesting that it is “a far left government wide computer office.” His claims about 18F were later revised by other X users in the Community Notes. Instead, the office explained that it helped Americans build a service that would allow them to file taxes online for free. Set to extended Nationwide.

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Like Musk, Lorusso's posts about X were retweets from another conservative media person. Luke Rosiak, author of the conservative news site The Daily Wire, posted a long thread on January 31st attacking 18F. He framed the technology consulting unit as “a far left agency” and “a contract in which transgender and queer hire each other.” The thread included a profile of former 18F employees using the pronoun for “them” in their BIOS, as well as images of employee crowdfunding campaigns for gender-affirming healthcare. I was also caught up in an article published by Rosiak about the GSA and the 18F in 2023. He suggested that he focused on agency diversity. The Russian chain&#39s first post has received over 13.5 million views and was retweeted by Musk.

According to a former employee, the Russian attack on the 18th floor included a misleading statement. Daily Wirewriters refused to insert facial recognition software into the government's website login.gov for “racial equity,” so 18F claimed 18F&#39s at-risk security for Americans on 18F. The claim blended several different parts of the GSA and misinterpreted security issues with facial recognition, said one former employee, with 18F denounced leadership decisions related to completely different business units.

The GSA faced a legitimate scandal when former Technology Transformation Services Director Dave Zvenyach misrepresented the level of security operated by Login.gov, but Login.gov was an independent entity from the 18th floor and had no direct staffing with the office. According to a former 18F employee, facial recognition software is well known for not being able to recognize non-white faces, and using it as an identity verification tool creates security issues for users, resulting in racial stock testing of facial recognition technology.

“I think it&#39s impossible to imagine people putting their partisans aside while they work for the government,” the former 18F employee said in response to conservative vitriol against the 18F.

In response to requests for comment on the thread&#39s statement, a Daily Wire spokesperson said the Russian report on the 18th floor speaks for itself.

Some former staff members following a massive layoff on the 18th floor Set up your website They attempt to revise the right-wing narrative that their group is partisan within the government, and instead highlight the various projects they have completed. Others warned that their group was an early warning sign of how the Doji and the Trump administration target other agencies based on ideological evidence, not on what they do.

“We lived through the evidence that the topic of this administration was wrong. Lindsay Young, former executive director of 18F, said in a LinkedIn post: “This targeted us.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Telemedicine and doctor’s office have the same safety for abortion pills.

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Abortion pill pills contain mifepristone and misoprostol

Brigette Supernova / Alamy

Abortion pills are just as safe and effective when obtained through telehealth services as they are when obtained in a doctor's office, according to the largest study ever on telemedicine abortions.

Access to abortion is a contentious political issue in the United States. In 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eliminated in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion drug mifepristone, allowing people to obtain the pill through telehealth services or by mail. Anti-abortion groups are currently challenging this ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Previous studies of hundreds of pregnancies have shown that telemedicine abortions are safe. For further investigation with a larger sample size, Ushma Upadhyay Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, collected data on more than 6,000 telemedicine abortions performed in 20 U.S. states and Washington, DC. All participants were less than 10 weeks pregnant, and approximately 72% of them obtained the abortion pill through a secure text message rather than a video call.

The researchers followed the participants for three to seven days after the abortion, and then again two to four weeks later. The research team found that nearly 98 percent of abortions effectively ended the pregnancy. Additionally, only 0.25 percent of participants experienced serious side effects, such as uncontrolled bleeding or infection. By comparison, personal use of mifepristone is more than 97% effective and has a 0.3% chance of causing adverse events. There was also no difference in outcomes between abortions obtained via text message or video.

“These findings are consistent with the growing body of evidence that mifepristone is safe and effective and that FDA's decision to eliminate the in-person dispensing requirement was scientifically sound.” says Upadhyay.

“The outcomes for patients who come to telemedicine and brick-and-mortar clinics are essentially indistinguishable,” he says. samuel dickman at Planned Parenthood of Montana, a reproductive health nonprofit. Telemedicine abortions are essential to providing care to rural populations and people who are uncomfortable going to an abortion clinic because of an abusive partner, he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The Post Office Horizon Scandal: Valuable Lessons for Big Tech Companies to Learn

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TThe Post Office Horizon scandal has long been a frustrating one to follow as a technology reporter. Because even though it stems from the failure to deploy a large-scale government IT project, it’s not about technology at all.

In such stories there is a desire to uncover the specific fault lines that caused the disaster to occur. Taking Grenfell Tower as an example, the entire system was flawed and the investigation into the fire revealed gory details, but it is also clear that the fatal error was in covering the building with combustible panels. Identifying that fulcrum leads both ways to further questions (how were the panels deemed safe, and was the building able to be safely evacuated despite their flaws?), but the catastrophic It is clear where it is.

I feel like there should be comparable focus points in the Horizon system. “What happened at Horizon that led to so many false accounts?” is a question I’ve asked many times over the decade since I first learned of the scandal. Thanks to Computer Weekly for the coverage. I searched for systems in the hopes of finding some important crux, a terrible decision around which all subsequent problems swirl, that could be sensibly explained to provide a technical foundation for a very human story of malice and greed. I’ve been looking into architecture.

Still, the conclusion I’m forced to draw is that Horizon was really, really broken. From toe to toe, the system was terrible. Each postmaster had fundamentally different flaws, so a plethora of technical errors, worst practice decisions, and lazy cutbacks were probably part of the reason the Postal Service continued to fight for so long. Masu.

One system continued to accept input even when the screen froze, writing transactions to the database invisibly, while other systems simply had edge-case bugs in the underlying system that caused transactions to change. It just couldn’t lock when it shouldn’t have. There was also a problem with the network with the central database, causing transactions to be dropped without warning whenever there was a problem with the data connection.

Still, if you want to trace the point in time when bad IT became a crisis, you need to look completely into the technology past. The Post Office declared Horizon to be functional as legal tender. Everything that happened after that was a logical conclusion. If Horizon works, the cause of the error should be in the subpostmaster operation. If they say they haven’t made a mistake, they must have committed fraud. If they committed fraud, a conviction is morally right.

But Horizon didn’t work.

Today’s big technology companies aren’t so cocky as to claim that their software is perfect. In fact, the opposite is accepted as reality. The phrase “all software has bugs” is repeated too often and casually, implying that users are demanding too much of the technology they rely and work reliably on.

But they often still act as if they believe the opposite. My inbox is constantly filled with unmanageable people who have been falsely flagged as spammers, scammers, or robots by Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple’s automated systems. These people have lost years of shopping, lost access to friends and family, and lost the pages and profiles on which they built their careers. I can’t help them all and still do my day job, but strangely enough, the cases I decide I can contact a large company for are almost always easily resolved. It turns out.

No one would argue that even the worst software Google has put out is as broken as Horizon. (The Post Office says the current version of the software, created in 2017, has been found to be “robust compared to comparable systems.”) But the real culprit is broken software with flaws. If you’re acting like something isn’t supposed to be there, that’s serious. The tech industry may have more lessons to learn from this scandal than it’s willing to admit.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Get Ready to Be Amazed by the AI, Post Office Horizon Incident

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For over 16 years, a large corporation relentlessly accused 900 postmasters of theft, false accounting, and fraud, despite the fact that the branch shortages were actually due to an accounting bug. It’s easy to understand the possible consequences of such accusations. The software enforced by the company is now being considered “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history.”

However, Rishi Sunak lacks imagination. On the other hand, the U.S. Marine Corps has coined an economic term that perfectly describes the Horizon fiasco as a “clusterfuck.” The Cambridge Dictionary primarily defines this as “a very rude word for a complete failure or a very serious problem.” Many mistakes and problems occurring at the same time.

Horizon was a product of the flawed and sometimes ignorant IT procurement system that the British state relied on for decades. The system procured from its ICL offshoot, owned by the Japanese giant Fujitsu, was a sprawling, computer bug-filled monster.

The plan was to replace the post office’s paper-based accounting system, but the hasty rollout for 13,000 busy, non-technical postmasters starting in 1999 was inadequately trained for the scale of the workflow transformation involved. Users quickly discovered bugs and flaws in the system, but the post office administrators showed a blind trust in the technology, leading to the prosecution of the sub-postmasters, ruining their lives and even leading to suicides.

Horizon was an electronic POS system that replaced paper-based cash registers and was networked, theoretically allowing the Post Office to keep an overall record of cash flows across the country. However, it seemed the system was “simply not up to the task it was asked to do,” according to The Guardian’s Alex Hearn.

By 2001, a team led by one of the system’s developers had discovered “hundreds” of bugs. Although a full list has not been compiled, court records revealed several examples, including the “Dalmellington Bug,” which caused the screen to freeze while the operator was trying to confirm receipt of cash. Each time the user pressed the Enter key on a frozen screen, the record was silently updated, making the subpostmaster responsible for the result.

The most peculiar part of the story is how long it took for the truth to emerge in the political system. Journalists have continued to tell the stories of Horizon’s victims, and a class action lawsuit was filed against the post office, with a public investigation beginning in 2020.

It wasn’t until ITV aired “Mr Bates vs. Post Office” that the issue became a hot political topic. The power of drama changed public opinion and revitalized the government. If there’s one major lesson to be learned from this mess, it’s the blind faith in technology that companies purchased at high prices. Now, organizations are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence, which may lead to further injustices in the future.

John Norton is Minderoo Center for Technology and Democracy, Cambridge

Source: www.theguardian.com

Post Office Memo from 25 Years Ago Predicts Scandal: The Post Office Horizon Incident

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I
In any major scandal that has the power to monopolize national attention, there are always key moments when events could have been stopped in their tracks. But few early warnings were as prescient as his seven-page memo handed to postal workers 25 years ago.

During an acrimonious meeting at Newcastle Rugby Club in 1999, the memo set out a number of concerns raised by postmasters in the north-east of England who were trialling the now infamous Horizon accounting system. It had been. Problems such as account balances caused stress for some people, forcing them to work late into the night.

Shortly after these concerns were raised, the subpostmasters met again to discuss the potential severity of the problem.
“The hardship and trauma that some postmasters are experiencing has raised concerns about their health and mental well-being,” the meeting was informed.

“Some felt that unless something changed soon, tragedy was not far away. The software was of poor quality and was not intended to run such a large network. Ta.”

Warnings of potential tragedy come as the flawed software – later found to have the potential to cause false losses that were blamed on postal workers – is rolled out across the Post Office network. done before.

But from the moment of the fateful decision to press forward with this destiny, a disastrous combination of legal change, geopolitics, a catastrophic lack of political curiosity, and above all outright deception, ultimately led to Thousands of innocent workers were victimized and prosecuted, with devastating effects.

At least four people took their own lives this week, the week in which Westminster finally acknowledged that unprecedented mass exonerations were needed to right more than two decades of injustice. Sadly, it was too late for the dozens of postmasters who were wronged and died, including one who died.




Former Posts Minister Paul Scally announced an independent inquiry into the Horizon scandal in 2020. Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Source: www.theguardian.com