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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

#181

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.

In the UK government records are generally covered by Crown Copyright (which is its own slightly more restrictive weird thing) rather than in the public domain. I haven't checked to see what the status of the court listings are, but the default is very different to the US.

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

#183

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.

> "court records are public forever" and "records of crimes expunged after X years" are incompatible.

Exactly. One option is for the person themselves to be able to ask for a LIMITED copy of their criminal history, which is otherwise kept private, but no one else.

This way it remains private, the HR cannot force the applicant to provide a detailed copy of their criminal history and discriminate based on it, they can only get a generic document from the court via Mr Doe that says, "Mr Doe is currently eligible to be employed as a financial advisor" or "Mr Doe is currently ineligible to be employed as a school teacher".

Ideally it should also be encrypted by the company's public key and then digitally signed by the court. This way, if it gets leaked, there's no way to prove its authenticity to a third party without at least outing the company as the source.

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

#184

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.

> 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. The idea that society is required to forget crime is pretty toxic honestly.

The idea that society is required to forgive crime is pretty Christian, though.

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

#185
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That can be solved by migrating to a sensible legal system instead.

[flagged]

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

#186
post #95

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? You're conflating two distinct issues - access to information, and making bad decisions based on that information. Blocking access to the information is the wrong way to deal with this problem. > a teenager shouldn't have their permanent AI profile become "shoplifter" because they did a crime at 15 yo that woul…

> Blocking access to the information is the wrong way to deal with this problem.

Blocking (or more accurately: restricting) access works pretty well for many other things that we know will be used in ways that are harmful. Historically, just having to go in person to a court house and request to view records was enough to keep most people from abusing the public information they had. It's perfectly valid to say that we want information accessible, but not accessible over the internet or in AI datasets. What do you think the "right way" to deal with the problem is because we already know that "hope that people choose to be better/smarter/more respectful" isn't going work.

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

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the UK we're talking about after all...

Where the accused have rights too?

Where the journalists have very little rights, and people posting their bad (wrong) ideas (think) even less so.

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

#188
post #64
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.

The government provided data to a private company. The private company sold resold access to a third party for AI ingestion. it's a plain case of tough titties to the private company.

That said I don't know why the hell the service concerned isn't provided by the government itself.

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

#189
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 or…

> working as a underling for organized crime to commit robberies, drug deals, and violent crime

Have you ever considered that these children are victims of organized crime? That they aren't capable of understanding the consequences of what they're doing and that they're being manipulated by adult criminals?

The problem here isn't the lack of long term consequences for kids.

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

#190

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.

Good luck proving it when it happens. We haven't even managed to stop discrimination based on race and religion, and that problem has only gotten worse as HR departments started using AI which conveniently acts as a shield to protect them.

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