[bhouston]

FYI, apparently there was a data breach, but it would seem better to fix the issue and continue with this public service than to just shut it down completely. Here is the Journalist organization in the UK responding:

"The government has cited a significant data protection breach as the reason for its decision - an issue it clearly has a duty to take seriously."

https://www.nuj.org.uk/resource/nuj-responds-to-order-for-th...

[masfuerte]

It wasn't a hack. The company used an external AI service.

ETA: They didn't ship data off to e.g. ChatGPT. They hired a subcontractor to build them a secure AI service.

Details in this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035141

leading to this:

https://endaleahy.substack.com/p/what-the-minister-said

The government is behaving disgracefully.

[pjc50]

Per the Minister herself, this matter wasn't important enough to refer to the ICO, who are the correct people to deal with data breaches.

[RobotToaster]

I've had to deal with the ICO over some pretty minor local government stuff, the bar for reporting to them is very low. I smell a coverup.

[hulitu]

> but it would seem better to fix the issue

They don't have a budget for that. And besides, it might be an externalized service, because self hosting is so 90s.

[jacquesm]

That's the dumbest possible response to this.