Have you ever thought about how much we rely on information systems? And how much does the mistake cost?
British Postal Office Scandal is one of the most dramatic examples of faulty software. It's also often used in different educational programs to show how dangerous technology can be.
So what's happened?
In 1999 UK Post Office launched Horizon system to automate accounting and stocktaking. It was a large project to deliver this system across all branches in the country. Management reported the great program success.
From the first days the system showed that some sub-postmasters accounts had shortfalls. Between 1999 and 2015 around 900 employees were convicted of crimes like theft, fraud, or false accounting.
So looks like the system visualized existing organizational problems, right?
Unfortunately, no. The system had some critical defects that led to show false shortfalls. The situation was even worse, because vendor and management knew about these problems:
Fujitsu was aware that Horizon contained software bugs as early as 1999, the Post Office insisted that Horizon was robust and failed to disclose knowledge of the faults in the system during criminal and civil cases.
The main part of convictions were quashed only in 2021. For that period many lives were already broken with bankruptcy, stress, illness, and even suicides.
In the era when everyone wants to build next Apple, Google, or Facebook, it's important to study failures. Software development requires strong responsibility of what we are doing, and a culture where speaking up about problems is valued, not punished.
#offtop #usecase #failures