How Software Bugs led to "One of the Greatest Miscarriages of Justice" in British History.

This article recounts the Fujitsu software system bugs that resulted in the incorrect criminal convictions of employees in the United Kingdom postal system. The article provides an overview of the software system, Horizon point-of-sale accounting software, and how inadequate coding and testing led t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:	Communications of the ACM Vol. 68; no. 3; pp. 12 - 15
Autor principal:	Halper, Mark
Formato:	Artículo
Publicado:	Association for Computing Machinery Mar2025
Materias:	Accounting software Software upgrades Postal workers Fujitsu Japan Ltd. Computer programming Postal service United Kingdom
Acceso en línea:	Ver este registro en EBSCOhost

Descripción
Sumario:	This article recounts the Fujitsu software system bugs that resulted in the incorrect criminal convictions of employees in the United Kingdom postal system. The article provides an overview of the software system, Horizon point-of-sale accounting software, and how inadequate coding and testing led to several bugs in the system. David McDonnell and Jason Coyne detail the lack of peer review and scope creep as additional problems. The civil suit organized by Alan Bates, a dismissed postal employee, is also discussed.