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Matt Edgar

Bank holiday evening in with the highly readable and instructive Technical Appendix to Post Office Group Litigation Judgment (No.6) “Horizon Issues” bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/20

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Matt Edgar

User error bias - “a tendency or bias regularly to blame the user of an IT system for something"

The expression put to Ms Van Den Bogerd in cross-examination was “user error bias”, an expression which she said she had not heard before. This term was explained as a tendency or bias regularly to blame the user of an IT system for something, and the point put to her was that this was “a common theme that runs through the Post Office’s approach” in this dispute. The exact passages of her evidence are as follows: “Q. UEB, have you ever heard of that? A. No. Q. User error bias? A. No, I can't say -- Q. It is where people in IT constantly blame the user when actually it is not their fault? A. Okay, I haven't heard that before.
Matt Edgar

"far too ready, even after investigations that clearly included the express discovery of bugs in code, to ascribe possible user error to the effect of bugs, errors and defects"

As can be seen from the answers to the Horizon Issues in Part M of the judgment, the claimants have been largely successful in their case on the Horizon Issues. In my judgment – and regardless of whether Fujitsu and/or the Post Office was applying user error bias, or not – it is clear to me that Fujitsu was far too ready, even after investigations that clearly included the express discovery of bugs in code, to ascribe possible user error to the effect of bugs, errors and defects that caused impact to branch accounts. It is to be hoped that this is no longer the situation.
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