Justice data is already monetised

On Wednesday night, in a thankfully air-conditioned room at the Institute for Government IPSOS and the Legal Education Foundation launched its new report, Data Matters: Building a Public Mandate for Court Data Use. 

Beneath the slightly dry title, there is much to get interested in. After all, as Dr Natalie Byrom from the foundation put it, this was the first ever research into what members of the public think about access by third parties to court records, judgments and other data.

The report is the latest initiative by the Legal Education Foundation on working to improve how the justice sector collects, marshals and utilises its data. We can all feel lucky that Dr Byrom has decided that this is the hill she is going to die on, as she strongly advocates for a data-driven approach to reform in the justice sector.  

IPSOS started by surveying 2,000-odd people, who were asked how comfortable they felt about information from court records being used for different purposes. First up, was 'to help judges make decision about the process', of which a rather astounding 9% said they felt uncomfortable. Another 23% said they were neither comfortable or uncomfortable. A bit worrying given our common law system.

Next, they were asked how they felt about information being used to improve the way courts are run, and still 10% felt uncomfortable with that proposition.

That built up to the big one, providing third parties access to court data 'to help commercial companies to develop products and services to be used within the justice system'. Nearly one third, 32%, said they were uncomfortable.

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like IPSOS told those surveyed that the largest custodians of court judgments are commercial publishing companies such as Westlaw and Lexis Nexis, who - yes – develop products and services that are used within the justice system.  

Its an uncomfortable truth that the Ministry of Justice has quietly let one of their biggest assets be monetised by international companies. Looking at this report, it appears that the public would not be comfortable at all with this status quo.

Many of the speakers at the event talked about how important public participation was in finding a proportionate way of deciding when to provide access to court data. The public’s faith in the justice system is at stake here, we were told sternly.

There is also a risk that in designing that a system that allows the 'right' people and companies to create 'useful' products for the justice system results in a set of requirements that are almost impossible to meet.  The National Archives has started developing such a test for the licensing of its Case Law database and it looks like a very daunting one to meet.

This will only have the effect of providing a greater competitive advantage to those commercial companies who already have the justice data. Perhaps the best slide of the night came from Dan Hoadley of Mishcon de Reya which proclaimed proudly that a been a dataset of 5,300 administrative court judgments had been 'supplied by vLex Justis'. As one the country’s leading litigation firms, this is clearly an asset that will yield dividends.   

Lucky for Mishcon, and rather unlucky for its competitors. A point driven home by the last speaker of the night, for the Ministry of Justice, who made clear that there would be no changes to existing commercial relationships.  

There is a road to travel in working out what open justice means in an age of AI-driven technologies, and I'm not sure we are much closer to working out our route.  

Sophie Walker is chief executive of Just: Access, a social enterprise that harnesses technology to overcome barriers to accessing justice