Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

legalcheek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 368 posts

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#141

Post by rorylawless »

sensecall wrote: post #66

Interesting tweet on the topic here: https://xcancel.com/SamjLondon/status/2021084532187775244 > ... the agreement restricts the supply of court data to news agencies and journalists only. > However, a cursory review of the Courtsdesk website indicates that this same data is also being supplied to other third parties — including members of @InvestigatorsUK — who pay a fee for access. > Those users could, in turn, dep…

This aligns with the explanation given in response to the urgent question. What looks like a simple breach of contract issue is being weaponized in bad faith by politicians who spend far too much time time on the shadier parts of the internet.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-02-10/debates/037...

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#142

Post by yxhuvud »

dathinab wrote: post #82

This all loops back to the same thing: you _really_ shouldn't be allowed to train on information without having a copyright license explicitly allowing it "publicly available" isn't the same as "anyone can do whatever they want with it", just anyone can read it/use it for research

In many cases government texts are not covered by copyright, so it may not even be relevant here, regardless of it is is allowed to copy the data or not.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#144

Post by slashdev »

whizzter wrote: post #21
londons_explore wrote: post #6

Something is either public record - in which case it should be on a government website for free, and the AI companies should be free to scrape to their hearts desire... Or it should be sealed for X years and then public record. Where X might be 1 in cases where you don't want to hurt an ongoing investigation, or 100 if it's someone's private affairs. Nothing that goes through the courts should be sealed forever. We s…

Open to research yes. Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks. AI firms have shown themselves to be playing fast and loose with copyrighted works, a teenager shouldn't have their permanent AI profile become "shoplifter" because they did a crime at 15 yo that would otherwise have been expunged after a few years.

AI isn't the problem here. Once something goes on the internet it lives forever (or should be treated as such). So has it always been.

If something is expungable it probably shouldn't be public record. Otherwise it should be open and scrapable and ingested by both search engines and AI.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#145

Post by megous »

ninjagoo wrote: post #124
koito17 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if made illegal, how does enforcement occur? The United States, at least, is notorious for HR being extremely opaque regarding hiring decisions. Then there's cases like Japan, where not only companies, but also landlords, will make people answer a question like: "have you ever been part of an anti-social organization or committed a crime?" If you don't answer truthfully, that is a legal reason to reject you. If…

The founders of modern nation-states made huge advancements with written constitutions and uniformity of laws, but in the convenience of the rule of law it is often missed that the rule of law is not necessarily the prevalence of justice. The question a people must ask themselves: we are a nation of laws, but are we a nation of justice?

Seems like a false dichotomy. You can be both, based on how you apply the laws.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#146

Post by notahacker »

reactordev wrote: post #72
whizzter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open to research yes. Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks. AI firms have shown themselves to be playing fast and loose with copyrighted works, a teenager shouldn't have their permanent AI profile become "shoplifter" because they did a crime at 15 yo that would otherwise have been expunged after a few years.

>”Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks.” 1000x this. It’s one thing to have a felony for manslaughter. It’s another to have a felony for drug possession. In either case, if enough time has passed, and they have shown that they are reformed (long employment, life events, etc) then I think it should be removed from consideration. Not expunge…

Also, courts record charges which are dismissed due to having no evidential basis whatsoever and statements which are deemed to be unreliable or even withdrawn. AI systems, particularly language models aggregating vast corpuses of data, are not always good at making these distinctions.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#147

Post by roryirvine »

gib444 wrote: post #110
pjc50 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Rotherham, I believe that most of those committing the crimes were not foreign; most were British born British nationals. Ethnicity is not the same as immigration status.

Congratulations, you've corrected us on the usage of the word immigrant. Now can we return to the topic? Whilst we're on Rotherham: "...by men predominantly of Pakistani heritage" [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-61868863 Their parents or grandparents were immigrants...

The topic was crimes committed by "foreign men", and your link refers to crimes committed by non-immigrants.

So it would seem that you're the one straying from the topic.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#148

Post by cataphract »

whatsupdog wrote: post #140
reactordev wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks.” 1000x this. It’s one thing to have a felony for manslaughter. It’s another to have a felony for drug possession. In either case, if enough time has passed, and they have shown that they are reformed (long employment, life events, etc) then I think it should be removed from consideration. Not expunge…

[flagged]

We didn't? It must be a small minority of countries that dole out the same punishment for both.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#149

Post by newsclues »

tyre wrote: post #98
newsclues wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you prohibit the punishment of minors, you create an incentive for criminals to exploit minors. Why are we protecting criminals, just because they are minors? Protect victims, not criminals. Unfortunately reputational damage is part of the punishment (I have a criminal record), but maybe it's moronic to create a class of people who can avoid meaningful punishment for crimes?

We protect minors because they are children, and they are allowed to make mistakes. At a certain point, we say someone is an adult and fully responsible for their actions, because “that’s who they are”. It’s not entirely nuanced—and in the US, at least, we charge children as adults all the time—but it’s understandable.

But you create an incentive for organized crime to recruit youth to commit crimes and not have to suffer the consequences.

At a certain point, poorly thought out "protections", turn into a system that protects organized crime, because criminals aren't as stupid as lawmakers, and exploit the system.

There is a big difference between making a mistake as a kid that lands you in trouble, and working as a underling for organized crime to commit robberies, drug deals, and violent crime, and not having to face responsibility for their actions.

The legal system has so many loopholes for youth, for certain groups, that the law is no longer fair, and that is its own problem, contributing to the decline of public trust.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#150

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

999900000999 wrote: post #87
londons_explore wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"court records are public forever" and "records of crimes expunged after X years" are incompatible. Instead, we should make it illegal to discriminate based on criminal conviction history. Just like it is currently illegal to discriminate based on race or religion. That data should not be illegal to know, but illegal to use to make most decisions relating to that person.

Everything should remain absolutely private until after conviction. And only released if it's in the public interest. I'd be very very strict here. I'm a bit weird here though. I basically think the criminal justice system is very harsh. Except when it comes to driving. With driving, at least in America, our laws are a joke. You can have multiple at fault accidents and keep your license. DUI, keep your license. Run i…

So here in the U.S., the Karen Read trial recently occupied two years of news cycles— convicted of a lesser crime on retrial.

Is the position that everyone who experienced that coverage, wrote about it in any forum, or attended, must wipe all trace of it clean, for “reasons”? The defendant has sole ownership of public facts? Really!? Would the ends of justice have been better served by sealed records and a closed courtroom? Would have been a very different event.

Courts are accustomed to balancing interests, but since the public usually is not a direct participant they get short shrift. Judges may find it inconvenient to be scrutinized, but that’s the ultimate and only true source of their legitimacy in a democratic system.

Post reply on HN