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UK Orders Deletion of Country's Largest Court Reporting Archive (thetimes.com) 57

The UK's Ministry of Justice has ordered the deletion of the country's largest court reporting archive [non-paywalled source], a database built by data analysis company Courtsdesk that more than 1,500 journalists across 39 media organizations have used since the lord chancellor approved the project in 2021.

Courtsdesk's research found that journalists received no advance notice of 1.6 million criminal hearings, that court case listings were accurate on just 4.2% of sitting days, and that half a million weekend cases were heard without any press notification. In November, HM Courts and Tribunal Service issued a cessation notice citing "unauthorized sharing" of court data based on a test feature.

Courtsdesk says it wrote 16 times asking for dialogue and requested a referral to the Information Commissioner's Office; no referral was made. The government issued a final refusal last week, and the archive must now be deleted within days. Chris Philp, the former justice minister who approved the pilot and now shadow home secretary, has written to courts minister Sarah Sackman demanding the decision be reversed.
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UK Orders Deletion of Country's Largest Court Reporting Archive

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  • Ok (Score:2, Troll)

    by liqu1d ( 4349325 )
    So seems they took the freely given data and sold it off to AI companies. I see why they're unimpressed.
    • Re:Ok (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rta ( 559125 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @02:17PM (#65982688)

      So seems they took the freely given data and sold it off to AI companies. I see why they're unimpressed.

      not in the way we'd normally think.
      the non-paywall article is more informative than the main:

      Leahy said Courtsdesk didn’t “share” data with an AI company but “hired them to test an idea”.

      He also said that “every word of what they could do with the data was written down”.

      “They could not use the data for any purpose other than providing services to us; they could not share it with anyone; and they could not use it to train any AI model.”

      He said all of this information was related to the Ministry of Justice but that no response was received.

      they also mention that the current governments' own data privacy department doesn't consider it a breach of any sort.

      either the MoJ is confused or they really are trying to decrease transparency

      • Re:Ok (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @02:25PM (#65982704)
        Or the MoJ is horribly embarrassed when shown that they are doing a really bad job. 4.2% accuracy? Unacceptable in a nation that relies upon public trials to ensure justice.

        This also serves as a reminder as to why the separation of powers is a good thing. The UK puts the legislature in charge of everything, instead of breaking out the court and executive branches.

        • Re:Ok (Score:4, Insightful)

          by DontSweatTheDetails ( 7539934 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @02:29PM (#65982722)
          The USA has put the executive in charge of everything, with far worse results. Constitutions aren't worth jack if nobody enforces them, and the USA has the government executing citizens in the street with impunity.
          • The thing with all of that is that the particular system doesn't matter too much.

            Good people can make bad systems work. Good systems cannot make bad people work.

            And the oft touted checks and balances fail when you need them the most.

            • That is a counsel of despair! In any sufficiently large group, there will always be bad people and mad people, but they can do relatively little damage by themselves. The question is how to prevent them from rising to power.

              • The question is how to prevent [bad/mad people] from rising to power.

                After all of the history of human civilization, about 7500 - 12000 years, depending on your viewpoint, this question remains basically unanswered. If enough of good people keep a vigilant watch, and are empowered to act, you can do rather long stretches. But so far every time we tried, bad people ended up in power sooner or later. The good thing is, however much the bad people tried, good people ended up in power sooner or later, too.

          • Yeah, but the thing is that isn't true. If you want to argue that the legislature has delegated too much to the executive agencies, I'll agree, but that's a drop out of the Separation of Powers bucket.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          Buddy you better take a look in the mirror.

          • Why, is this a performance evaluation? But I don't work for you! I will assure you though that my work is more than 4.2% accurate, but only because I like you.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Is the low accuracy due to the MoJ or the database operator or someone else?

          This won't spare them much embarrassment. The data still exists and statistics on their failures will still be published. We are moving away from jury trials to judge trials for many offences, to try to clear a years long backlog of cases that the previous government allowed to build up by cutting funding to the system.

          There is little incentive for the current government to hide anything, because their measures haven't started yet,

          • And that's why separating powers is good. Now, the just system of jury trials which the US inherited from the UK is vanishing to the detriment of justice. It's a Constitutional right in the US, and I'm worried about what's happening in the UK if they are losing it. For Christ's sake, Graham Linehan got arrested for being funny!

            It's getting to the point where Parliament isn't holding up its end of the Magna Carta. I'm starting to think the King should tear it up and demand a formal Constitution that f

        • Or the MoJ is horribly embarrassed when shown that they are doing a really bad job.

          This is not America, the records aren't being destroyed. All that's happening is one company that was given access to records to create an archive and abused that to use the information in ways it wasn't allowed to in the contract is being told that because of the breach of contract it has to now delete that archive.

          • Well, the article does make it sound like the MoJ's records are terrible, and the only good (reliable and accurate) ones are the ones being destroyed. Or maybe it was just that the MoJ is utterly incompetent when it comes to presenting records (i.e. telling people about cases), but that is also unacceptable. You can't have a trustworthy justice system if trials are not public knowledge. Especially now that the UK is dropping jury trials (a guaranteed right in the US, which is an idea we inherited from th
  • Embarrassing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @02:14PM (#65982674)

    UK is frustrated with reports on social media arrests.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What the summary fails to mention is that this is in response to them selling the data to an AI company, including a large amount of personal and private data.

      Legal data like this is protected in the UK, and in Europe thanks to GDPR. Access to it is intentionally harder than just googling someone's name, and there are things like the Right to be Forgotten. For example, if you are applying for a job, an employer should not be able to put your name into Google and see that you were bankrupt 12 years ago. Same

  • by Snert32 ( 10404345 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @02:50PM (#65982784)
    If the database is reporting that the government does a poor job (not informing reporters, very low accuracy rate), there are two choices: 1) Do a better job, or 2) Cancel the reporting. Of course, the answer is obvious ...
  • I'm sure I'm not the only American that's willing to host and support The Free Press.

    In America, UK has no power (since 1776)

    Imagine the political possibilities if we hosted this on American soil on American servers.

  • by belmolis ( 702863 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @11:00PM (#65983880) Homepage
    What gives the UK government the authority to order the deletion of the archive? Is there a contract between the government and the archive that gives them this power? Generally, once the government has released information, it loses the power to control it.
  • Orwell got the date wrong.

Cobol programmers are down in the dumps.

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