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

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

#121

Post by Gud »

londons_explore wrote: post #18
nonethewiser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We should give up with the idea of databases which are 'open' to the public, but you have to pay to access, reproduction isn't allowed, records cost pounds per page, and bulk scraping is denied. That isn't open. How about rate limited?

No. Open is open. Beyond DDoS protections, there should be no limits. If load on the server is a concern, make the whole database available as a torrent. People who run scrapers tend to prefer that anyway. This isn't someone's hobby project run from a $5 VPS - they can afford to serve 10k qps of readonly data if needed, and it would cost far less than the salary of 1 staff member.

The world is not black and white.

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

#122

Post by garblegarble »

FunHearing3443 wrote: post #57
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.

Curious, why should conviction history not be a factor? I could see the argument that previous convictions could indicate a lack of commitment to no longer committing crimes.

I couldn't parse the intended meaning from "lack of commitment to no longer commiting crimes"), so here's a response that just answers the question raised.

Do you regard the justice system as a method of rehabilitating offenders and returning them to try to be productive members of society, or do you consider it to be a system for punishment? If the latter, is it Just for society to punish somebody for the rest of their life for a crime, even if the criminal justice considers them safe to release into society?

Is there anything but a negative consequence for allowing a spent conviction to limit people's ability to work, or to own/rent a home? We have carve-outs for sensitive positions (e.g. working with children/vulnerable adults)

Consider what you would do in that position if you had genuinely turned a corner but were denied access to jobs you're qualified for?

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

#123

Post by Aerroon »

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…

One of the problems with open access to these government DBs is that it gives out a lot of information that spammers and scammers use.

Eg if you create a business then that email address/phone number is going to get phished and spammed to hell and back again. It's all because the government makes that info freely accessible online. You could be a one man self-employed business and the moment you register you get inundated with spam.

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

#124

Post by ninjagoo »

koito17 wrote: post #62
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.

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?

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

#126

Post by piperswe »

mschuster91 wrote: post #120
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…

> What I’m saying is, if you were stupid after your 18th birthday and caught a charge peeing on a cop car while publicly intoxicated, I don’t think that should be a factor when your 45 applying for a job after going to college, having a family, having a 20 year career, etc. I'd go further and say a lot of charges and convictions shouldn't be a matter of public record that everyone can look up in the first place, at l…

The UK has common law: the outcomes of previous court cases and the arguments therein determine what the law is. It’s important that court records be public then, because otherwise there’s no way to tell what the law is.

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

#127

Post by adastra22 »

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…

> Nothing that goes through the courts should be sealed forever.

What about family law?

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

#128

Post by Polizeiposaune »

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…

Arrests being a matter of public record are a check on the government's ability to make people just disappear.

But the Internet's memory means that something being public at time t1 means it will also be public at all times after t1.

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

#130

Post by DebtDeflation »

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.

Totally agree. And it goes beyond criminal history. Just because I choose to make a dataset publicly available doesn't mean I want some AI memorizing it and using it to generate profit.
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