The Post Office Scandal: The Naive Faith in Computers: Steven Murdoch

The courts have a naive faith in computer evidence, based in ignorance. Since the repeal of the section of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act which required certification that computer systems were functioning correctly, a presumption has been adopted by the courts of England and Wales that they simply do, without the need for any certification to confirm it and is therefore admissible as evidence.

This presumption formed the basis for the criminal prosecutions and civil actions against subpostmasters who were consequently put in the position of having to prove their innocence with no need by the Post Office to prove that Horizon, full of bugs as it was, was functioning properly.

This resulted in the hundreds of miscarriages of justice caused to subpostmasters and the ruin of many lives

Steven Murdoch is Professor of Security Engineering and Royal Society Research Fellow at University College London. He is Innovation Security Architect at OneSpan. He explains how wrong this presumption is, how ignorant the courts and lawyers are and how laughable IT specialists consider this presumption to be.