UK plan to digitise wills and destroy paper originals “insane” say experts::Department hopes to save £4.5m a year by digitising – then binning – about 100m wills that date back 150 years
I understand why it is not a good idea to digitize, as tampering might be easier to do without any traces, but why do they store wills for 150 years? One would think that by then they are outdated and no longer needed.
Edit: looks like the concern is about historical artifacts. Feels even more ridiculous than I thought. What’s next, taking pictures of historical paintings and destroying originals? Why not digitize and still keep the originals?
Why not digitize and still keep the originals?
That’s where I’m at. Why not both? Redundancy is good,
Paper copies are good to have till they’re no longer necessary (edit: and apparently these aren’t necessary anymore)
Digital copies are also useful for obvious reasons
They aren’t necessary, that’s the point.
They want to preserve them as historical documents and the government is trying to cut storage costs.
Much less expensive than maintaining the digital format they’re scanned into over hundreds of years, or upgrading the format each time the technology evolves. Eventually you reach a point where it’s better to re-scan into the new format rather try to upgrade for the 50th time. But then you haven’t maintained the originals. Under the right conditions, paper can last thousands of years.
This is an idea straight out of science fiction that was meant to be a warning, not a guide. From “Rainbow’s End” by Vernor Vinge.
Tiny flecks of white floated and swirled in the column of light. Snowflakes? But one landed on his hand: a fleck of paper. And now the ripping buzz of the saw was still louder, and there was also the sound of a giant vacuum cleaner…
Brrrap! A tree shredder!
Ahead of him, everything was empty bookcases, skeletons. Robert went to the end of the aisle and walked toward the noise. The air was a fog of floating paper dust. In the fourth aisle, the space between the bookcases was filled with a pulsing fabric tube. The monster worm was brightly lit from within. At the other end, almost twenty feet away, was the worm’s maw - the source of the noise… The raging maw was a “Navicloud custom debinder.” The fabric tunnel that stretched out behind it was a “camera tunnel…” The shredded fragments of books and magazines flew down the tunnel like leaves in a tornado, twisting and tumbling. The inside of the fabric was stiched with thousands of tiny cameras. The shreds were being photographed again and again, from every angle and orientation, till finally the torn leaves dropped into a bin just in front of Robert.
Digitising wills: ok, cool.
Destroying paper originals: Oh god no, why?!
People want the government to provide services efficiently yet the second anyone suggests not doing things the most expensive and outdated way possible everyone loses their minds.
Are you all accelerationists or just the no give only throw dog?
This isn’t about efficiency - if they were just digitizing it that would be fine. Getting rid of the originals in addition is a recipe for disaster
Maintaining and keeping 500 million paper documents is expensive. If they just let them sit neglected for cheaper, then they may risk confidentiality. So they have to either properly actively maintain and secure them, or destroy them for risk of some breach of confidentiality.
Further, I don’t understand what this “disaster” would look like.
Something like this. But seriously, this is how GilBates1!!1 becomes the newest billionaire.
It’s not insane, it’s malicious. Done with ill intent. How many times do we have to see shit like this before we stop giving obvious evil the benefit of the doubt?
They have good form in spectacularly fucking this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal
