Botched software update to blame for Post Office Horizon crash
Summary
A fault during a scheduled software update caused a UK-wide crash of the Post Office’s controversial Horizon IT system earlier this month. “We apologise to all postmasters and customers affected and we are identifying additional steps to ensure this problem doesn’t happen again.” Post Office has not explained whether the update was performed by Fujitsu or its own staff. A Computer Weekly investigation in 2009 revealed that subpostmasters, who run Post Office branches, were being blamed for unexplained financial losses, which they claimed were caused by errors made by the Horizon system. The Post Office denied this, and many subpostmasters were subsequently prosecuted for theft and false accounting, with prison sentences, community service, criminal records and heavy fines among the injustices they suffered as a result. Referring to the latest Horizon problem, one industry source said: “The good news, for subpostmasters, is that these sorts of network-wide interruptions are so obvious that any resultant shortfalls are likely to be relatively easy to notice and also more likely to elicit a sympathetic response from the Post Office.