When an automated system begins taking victims in its undertow, the people in charge have got to step up to the plate. How far can things be allowed to play out before the lives being destroyed by a company start to count more than the money being made?
That's the question that the fiasco around Horizon has forced us to ask. So what is the Horizon scandal? What does it mean for corporate security as a whole?
What Is the Horizon Scandal?
Horizon is an IT system used by the Post Office in the United Kingdom. Since 2000, the system has been reporting false financial discrepancies that have resulted in many postmasters being incriminated for "stealing" money that was not being accounted for by the program itself.
The oversight was not addressed at the door; nearly all of these cases were carried through the country's legal system blindly.
Insane? Absolutely. The company that created Horizon place the blame entirely on the falsely accused when these things happen.
Many of the Post Office employees who were unable to make up the fictional deficit out-of-pocket have been sent through the British penal system on IT evidence alone, some even going so far as to kill themselves.
It has taken the UK Postal Service an astounding two decades to confront this problem head-on. Finally, in April 2021, the UK Post Office Chief Executive announced that the deeply flawed Horizon system will be replaced nationally, and not a moment too soon. Those implicated will now have their day in the National Court of Appeal.
A Dangerous Precedent
How can a paper trail be used to prosecute with legitimate alibis in place and no other indicators of criminal intent in sight?
With lives being steamrolled by bankruptcy and even hard time behind bars, what could have ended up as an easily resolved clerical error amounts to divorce, suicide, and careers being driven off-course. Who is to blame?
A critic said anyone at the helm of such a powerful organization was "asleep at the wheel" if such goings-on are allowed to continue automatically, even after being called out by the victims.
The fact that this legislation was allowed to imprison law-abiding, working citizens of its own volition indicates a chilling insensitivity at the executive level, both for the UK Post Office and for those who oversee Horizon and the clients that it serves.
If the employees of the Post Office can be considered constituents, the failure to instate safeguards against this type of oversight is one that should hang heavy around their necks.
Corporate Accountability
The only thing that has the power to stop a company that's gone off the rails is the board members of the company in question. Only so much can be done to "repair" in retrospect.
Without adequate leadership, transgressions like this will only become more commonplace and normalized, as have been for over two decades until these recent developments.
What makes a piece of information sensitive? Whether something private like a bank routing number or something like a receipt for a transaction that never occurred in the first place, the reality is that both of these things have the power to completely decimate a person's quality of life if used nefariously.
When it comes to corporate accountability, the ethics around technology need to be refined to block this type of activity out at the gate.
I welcome the Court of Appeal's decision to overturn the convictions of 39 former sub-postmasters in the Horizon dispute, an appalling injustice which has had a devastating impact on these families for years.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 23, 2021
Lessons should and will be learnt to ensure this never happens again.
Part of this will involve devoting some thought to ways that information we create with every bank transfer or Instagram post may come back to haunt us. A preventative measure can only be called so if it actually prevents the damage from manifesting at all.
Transparency in how technology is used will be another safeguard protecting us from digital disasters like this in the future.
One of the things that actually prevented some of the victims involved with Horizon from contesting these errors was the fact that they were not able to access the parts of the program that would have contained the information required to vindicate them.
How Can You Protect Yourself at Work?
Protecting yourself as a professional goes beyond using a VPN service or keeping your password updated. It involves choosing a company that cares about you, if you happen to be in a position to do so.
Clearly, this is not always possible. Even in a great company, you may be required to use software that does not protect you adequately—those working through the height of the pandemic will remember the controversy surrounding Zoom's security standards.
The normal rules of responsible internet use will apply here; keeping your passwords updated, being wary of unusual login attempts and of phishing schemes, and avoiding correspondence with strangers who don't seem legit.
The underlying problem appears to have two prongs:
- Corporate and political leaders who are much more focused on seizing power and capital than they are in running large companies and countries full of people.
- Leaders in technology who steamroll right through the social boundaries that would protect us from one another otherwise.
As a business, conducting frequent security checks and managing the business of your data wisely will keep everything safe from would-be hackers. Having a plan and a RAID array ready at a moment's notice will ensure that business is always running smoothly, even in the worst circumstances.
When in doubt, and the problem appears to be inside the black box, do what you can in terms of activism and signal-boosting these problems when they are being swept under the rug in your own workplace.
A Digital World Comes at a Dire Cost
Thankfully, those involved with the latest Horizon debacle have all had their names cleared. But what has been lost along the way?
Monetary reparations can be made to any parties who have had their funds go missing in translation. But the additional and compounding impact that these errors have already had on the lives of these innocent people will not be put to rest with a check covering the cost.
The Post Office has set into motion a year-long plan to gradually phase Horizon out in favor of another IT system. With the lessons of the past behind us, we hope that powerful organizations will choose who they trust the lives that they're responsible for more judiciously.
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