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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

#271

Post by jama211 »

dash2 wrote: post #216
g-mork wrote: post #89

Confused what to make of the comments here. Access to court lists has always been free and open, it's just a pain in the ass to work with. The lists contain nothing much of value beyond the names involved in a case and the type of hearing It's not easy to see who to believe. The MP introducing it claiming there is a "cover up" is just what MPs do. Of course it makes him look bad, a service he oversaw the introduction…

I think you're underestimating how important "just a pain in the ass to work with" may be. An analogy would be Hansard and theyworkforyou.com. The government always made Hansard (record of parliamentary debates) available. But theyworkforyou cleaned the data, and made it searchable with useful APIs so you could find how your MP voted. This work was very important for making parliament accessible; IIRC, the guys behin…

Well said

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

#272

Post by sefrost »

DrScientist wrote: post #63
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…

The story is about a tool that allows journalists to get advanced warning of court proceedings so them can choose to cover things of public interest. It's not about any post-case information.

We should remember that local journalism has been dead for a decade in most of the UK, largely due to social media.

Any tool like this that can help important stories be told, by improving journalist access to data and making the process more efficient, must be a good thing.

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

#273

Post by mhh__ »

Hard to see how this isn't totally asinine and retarded.

I haven't confirmed it but I've seen journalist friends of mine complain also that the deletion period for much data is about 7 years so victims are genuinely shocked that they can't access their own transcripts even from 2018... Oh and if they can they're often extremely expensive.

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

#274

Post by brightball »

phatfish wrote: post #159
brightball wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This aligns with what all of the conspiracy theorists have been saying about the UK over the last year. Maybe there is something to it.

Everything aligns with internet conspiracy theories if you try hard enough.

I mean, sure.

But when the conspiracy involves lack of prosecution or inconsistent sentencing at scale and then the Ministry of Justice issues a blanket order to delete one of the best resources to look into those claims...? Significantly increases the legitimacy of the claims.

I assumed it was the usual conspiracy stuff up until this order.

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

#275

Post by mikkupikku »

Muromec wrote: post #219
mikkupikku wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say a cop kills somebody in your neighborhood. Some witnesses say it looked like murder to them, but per your wishes the government doesn't say who the cop was and publishes no details about the crime.. for two years, when they then say they cop was found not guilty. And as per your wishes again, even then they won't say anything about the alleged crime, and never will. Is this a recipe for public trust in thei…

It is also possible to apply a higher standard to the government employees and force greater transparency on them, up to treating them as de-facto slaves of the society.

Yeah okay, different standard just for government employees... So consider the same scenario above except instead of a cop its the son of a politician or the nephew of a billionaire. Not government employees. Are you comfortable with the government running secret trials for them too? Are you confident that the system can provide fair and impartial judgments for such people when nobody is allowed to check their work?

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

#276

Post by cyanydeez »

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…

I think the right balance is to air gap a database and allow access to the public by your standard: show up somewhere with a USB.

I think it's right to prevent random drive by scraping by bots/AI/scammers. But it shouldnt inhibit consumers who want to use it to do their civic duties.

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

#277

Post by ryandrake »

Fogest wrote: post #218
ryandrake wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative? A 14 year old steals a pack of gum, and he's listed as a shoplifter for the rest of his life? Just because exceptions are exploitable, doesn't mean we should just scrap all the exceptions. Why not improve the wording and try to work around the exceptions?

If you don't think this crime is a big deal, then why do you think this crime would matter if it was in the public record tied to their name? These two ideas you have are not compatible.

I don't think stealing a pack of gum at 14 years old is a big deal, but many people have a huge problem understanding proportionality: To them, it's binary. You're either a criminal or not a criminal, and if this kid's record shows "shoplifter" until he dies, a significant number of people, including employers, will lump him into the "criminal" bucket for the rest of his life.

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

#278

Post by 587687646343767 »

hackable_sand wrote: post #252
blell wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Immigration policy has nothing to do with crime

[flagged]

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

#279

Post by Mordisquitos »

charcircuit wrote: post #259
vimda wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this a weird take. Are you saying you _want_ unaccountable and profit driven third party companies to become quasi-judicial arbiters of justice?

I am saying that it is not good if you had to hide information about yourself in order to get hired. Justice is provided by the courts.

> Justice is provided by the courts.

Indeed. And as far as I know, "courts" is not an alternative spelling of "AI".

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

#280

Post by iso1631 »

adw wrote: post #242
Sanzig wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries have solved this with a special background check. In Canada we call this a "vulnerable sector check," [1] and it's usually required for roles such as childcare, education, healthcare, etc. Unlike standard background checks, which do not turn up convictions which have received record suspensions (equivalent to a pardon), these ones do flag cases such as sex offenses, even if a record suspension was issu…

In the UK the equivalent is a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check.

And indeed there are four different levels for that.
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