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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

#161

Post by nicoburns »

bko wrote: post #155
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…

> I think it should be removed from consideration. Not expunged or removed from record, just removed from any decision making. The timeline for this can be based on severity with things like rape and murder never expiring from consideration. That's up to the person for the particular role. Imagine hiring a nanny and some bureaucrat telling you what prior arrest is "relevant". No thanks. I'll make that call myself.

That's the reality in my country, and I think most European countries. And I'm very glad it is. The alternative is high recidivism rates because criminals who have served their time are unable access the basic resources they need (jobs, house) to live a normal life.

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

#162

Post by rjsw »

criddell wrote: post #43
spacebanana7 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The names of minors should never be released in public (with a handful of exceptions). But why shouldn't a 19 year old shoplifter have that on their public record? Would you prevent newspapers from reporting on it, or stop users posting about it on public forums?

Would you want the first thing to show up after somebody googles your name to be an accusation for improper conduct around a child? In theory, people could dig deeper and find out you won in court and were acquitted, but people here should know that nobody ever reads the article...

The UK has an official system [1] for checking whether people should be allowed to work with vulnerable people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disclosure_and_Barring_Service

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

#163

Post by pixl97 »

adastra22 wrote: post #127
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?

Yep, these are commonly sealed records and having worked with family law lawyers there are things that happened to the victims that should never be unsealed.

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

#164

Post by phatfish »

gadders wrote: post #64
evaXhill wrote: post #3

Seems quite absurd that they would shut down the only system that could tell journalists what was actually happening in the criminal courts under the pretext that they sent information to a third-party AI company (who doesn’t these days). Here’s a rebuttal by one of the founders i believe: https://endaleahy.substack.com/p/what-the-minister-said

Based on that response, what the government are doing is dreadful.

When there is a risk of feeding sensitive data to the AI giants the first reaction should be to pull the plug. I'm impressed the government acted quickly and decisively for once. Maybe the company involved will think twice before entering an agreement with an AI company. Notice in the whole rant it is never mentioned which AI giant they were feeding.

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

#165

Post by spoctrial »

megous wrote: post #145
ninjagoo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The parent comment is not presenting a false dichotomy but is making precisely the point that it is how you apply the laws that matter; that just having laws is not enough.

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

#166

Post by keernan »

The subject of the article is the public right to access the daily schedule of England's courts.

In the United States our Constitution requires the government conduct all trials in public ( with the exception of some Family Court matters ). Secret trials are forbidden. This is a critical element to the operation of any democracy.

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

#168

Post by adastra22 »

pixl97 wrote: post #163
adastra22 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing that goes through the courts should be sealed forever. What about family law?

Yep, these are commonly sealed records and having worked with family law lawyers there are things that happened to the victims that should never be unsealed.

Even outside of family law there are many justifiable reasons for sealing and even expunging (deletion) of records. I’m a believer that under the correct circumstances criminal records should be sealed & even in some cases expunged as well. People deserve a second chance.

Family law is just the most obvious and unarguable example.

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

#169

Post by mustyoshi »

londons_explore wrote: post #41
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.

"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.

>Instead, we should make it illegal to discriminate based on criminal conviction history

Absolutely not. I'm not saying every crime should disqualify you from every job but convictions are really a government officialized account of your behavior. Knowing a person has trouble controlling their impulses leading to aggrevated assault or something very much tells you they won't be good for certain roles. As a business you are liable for what your employees do it's in both your interests and your customers interests not to create dangerous situations.

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

#170

Post by Steve16384 »

blell wrote: post #115
pjc50 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crimes are committed by individuals. "Immigrants" is a group. Prosecution of sexual assault is often handled extremely badly. It needs to be done better, without fear or favor, including people who are friends with the police or in positions of power. As we're seeing the fallout of the Epstein files.

Immigration policy is one of the most important things people vote for in an election. We need transparent crime data so we can make an informed vote.

Imho it's only "important" because the media make such a big thing of migrants being the cause of all our ills.
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