Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst MP has questioned the Government’s decision to shutdown Courtsdesk, a data analysis platform used by journalists to monitor court records and report on the performance of the justice system.
In November, HM Courts and Tribunals Service issued Courtsdesk with a cessation notice, ordering it to stop operating and delete its archive. The Ministry of Justice claimed the company had engaged in “unauthorised sharing” of court data while testing a new feature, describing the issue as a data protection concern.
Courtsdesk has been used by more than 1,500 journalists from 39 media organisations, and its reporting has helped expose serious delays and failures across the courts system.
Raising the issue in Parliament during an Urgent Question, Dr Shastri-Hurst asked the Courts Minister why, if the alleged breach was so serious, it was not reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office within the required 72-hour timeframe.
When Courtsdesk itself requested that the matter be referred to the regulator, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that no referral had been made.
Commenting after the parliamentary debate, Mr Shastri-Hurst said:
“If the data breach was genuinely as serious as the Government now claims, the obvious question is why it has never been reported. Either the breach met the threshold for reporting, or the decision to close Courtsdesk simply does not add up.”
