Brickbat: Purging Records

The British Ministry of Justice has ordered the deletion of Courtsdesk, the country’s largest archive of court records, which is regularly used by journalists to track magistrates’ court cases. According to Courtsdesk, the official court systems are often slow, with inaccurate or missing data, and reporters were not told about 1.6 million hearings in advance. As a result, more than 1,500 journalists from 39 media organizations used the service regularly to cover legal news. The ministry said it ordered the deletion because of concerns about data privacy, but press advocates worry about a lack of transparency in the justice system.