Opinion: Acquitted by Judgment, Still Convicted by Algorithm—Court Press Releases Cannot Only Have First Instance, No Conclusion

Today, it might be someone else being fixed by the official old page, but tomorrow it could be anyone. AI search turns the first instance press release directly into an answer, and if the final acquittal does not return to the same page, judicial transparency will become a permanent label. As long as someone has been accused, prosecuted, or even just found guilty in the first instance, anyone could have their name permanently written into the search results by the court press release. Even if a higher court eventually acquits them, employers, business partners, media, general netizens, and even generative AI that quickly checks backgrounds might still see the earliest, shortest, and most unfavorable official summary first. This is not about the privacy privileges of celebrities or the reputation defense of a particular party, but a digital risk that everyone who might be involved in judicial proceedings will face. The reason court texts are trustworthy is that they carry national authority; and precisely because of this, courts cannot only be responsible for issuing statements but not for supplementing the conclusion. Official information cannot only leave the most unfavorable page. On January 31, 2024, after the first instance verdict, the Taiwan New Taipei District Court issued a press release regarding case number 111 Yizi No. 363 on breach of trust and other matters, listing the full names of the three defendants and detailing the first instance guilty verdict, criminal facts, and penalties. (New Taipei District Court 111 Yizi No. 363 Press Release) However, on August 21, 2025, the Taiwan High Court's 113 Yishangzi No. 557 criminal judgment overturned the original verdict and acquitted all three defendants, with no right to appeal. (Taiwan High Court 113 Yishangzi No. 557 Judgment) As of July 2026, the original first instance press release remains on the Judicial Yuan's website, with no prominent final acquittal note on the page, nor does it directly lead readers to subsequent judgments. The result is: readers see 'guilty' at the first official entry; if they want to know the outcome of the case, they must first guess that there is a second instance, know the case number, enter another system, and piece together the complete judicial process themselves. 'The judgment is in the database' does not equal 'official information is complete.' Data existence only proves that the file has not disappeared; information completeness answers what the people actually see. If the first instance accusation is placed in the show window and the final acquittal is put in the warehouse, then requiring each reader to verify it themselves is not judicial transparency but outsourcing the information cost and misunderstanding risk entirely to the people. This problem is particularly urgent in 2026. Google announced at this year's I/O conference that AI Overviews has over 250 million active users per month, and AI Mode has surpassed 100 million; search is shifting from clicking through links one by one to AI directly summarizing, answering, and continuing the conversation. (Google I/O 2026 Official Explanation) In the traditional search era, an old court press release was just one of many links; in the AI answer era, it might directly be condensed into a person's background, case summary, or even become the first impression for credit checks and risk assessments. Court press releases are short, conclusions are clear, and the source is authoritative, making them the data format most easily quoted and summarized; in contrast, the dozens of pages of final judgments are hidden in another system, and the algorithm will not automatically supplement the court with changes in the level of appeal and acquittal conclusions. Courts cannot, on the one hand, require society to believe official information, and on the other hand, still manage web pages with the mindset of the paper bulletin era. Once official data enters the search and AI supply chain, it is no longer a static file but a continuously extracted, recomposed, and retransmitted public infrastructure. This case later had an even more alarming development. In November 2025, a man attacked Dr. Jiang in a hospital examination room with a craft knife. The New Taipei District Court issued a press release on May 26, 2026, regarding case number 114 Sushen No. 1237, recognizing the offender's act as assault and clearly stating the sentencing reason, which was that 'the offender was dissatisfied with the other party being acquitted in another case' and thus attacked with a knife. (New Taipei District Court 114 Sushen No. 1237 Press Release) A line must be drawn: without evidence, it cannot be claimed that an old press release directly caused violence; the responsibility for the attack lies solely with the offender. However, the court's subsequent press release has already proven that the acquitted case did not exit the public narrative but was continuously linked, emotionally interpreted, and even included in the hostile reasons of the violent perpetrator. At this point, the judicial authorities can no longer regard the contextual gaps in the original press release as an irrelevant website maintenance issue. More glaringly, the subsequent knife case press release adopted 'O' masking for both the defendant and the victim; the same court, when facing a serious violent case, knows that anonymization is an option that can be taken, but allows the first instance guilty information of those who have been finally acquitted to remain with full names for a long time. The nature of the two cases is certainly different, but if the standards for name disclosure, masking, and subsequent supplementary notes are not publicly consistent, what the people will see is: the level of protection depends on individual administrative decisions, not a predictable and verifiable system. This is not a demand to 'be forgotten' but a demand to 'be completely remembered.' Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 603 points out that the right to informational privacy not only safeguards an individual's decision on whether, when, and to whom data is disclosed but also includes the knowledge, control, and correction of data use. Article 5 of the Personal Data Protection Act requires that data use not exceed necessary limits, and Article 11 requires government agencies and non-government agencies to maintain data accuracy and proactively or upon request correct and supplement it. (Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 603 | Article 5 of the Personal Data Protection Act | Article 11 of the Personal Data Protection Act) Even if it is not claimed that the Personal Data Protection Act can be mechanically applied to every court press release without individual judgment, the governance principles revealed by these regulations are very clear: digital information management is not only about 'deletion' and 'leaving it as is' but also includes supplementation, annotation, linking, and reducing unnecessary harm. The Taiwan High Court's case number 106 Yishang No. 1160 on 'removing network search results, etc.' also discussed how the internet and search engines make the adverse effects of personal information faster, broader, and longer-lasting, and required a balance between public interest, the role of the parties, the passage of time, and personality damage. (Taiwan High Court 106 Yishang No. 1160 Judgment Summary) Even if the case involves public figures, public interest at most supports the retention of historical records but cannot support hiding the final results. True informed consent requires more complete information rather than freezing social cognition permanently at the first instance. Overseas, even removal and anonymization can be measured, so why can't Taiwan even manage a line of annotation? In 2014, the European Court of Justice in the Google Spain case pointed out that even if the data was initially lawful and correct, over time, it might need to be weighed against the rights of name search results due to no longer being relevant or exceeding necessary limits. (European Court of Justice Google Spain case (C-131/12)) In 2023, the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber in the Hurbain v. Belgium case ruled that the Belgian court's requirement for the Late News to anonymize the name of the driver involved in an accident in electronic old news did not violate freedom of the press; the driver had served his sentence and been reinstated, and the old news could be easily found by simply entering the name. (European Court of Human Rights Hurbain v. Belgium case) Overseas cases involve the removal of search results or the anonymization of original reports, which are more drastic measures than 'adding a line of final results.' If the Taiwanese courts even refuse to discuss the minimum impact of annotations and links, the problem is not that it cannot be done technically but that the system still does not want to acknowledge that digital disclosure has a life cycle and that information accuracy includes subsequent context. The court only needs to supplement the conclusion, and the Judicial Yuan must establish a system. In this case, the High Court does not need to issue another press release or comment on the correctness of the first instance; the original release page only needs to add a 'case follow-up' mark, stating that the original judgment has been overturned and the three defendants have been finally acquitted, and directly linking to the full text of the judgment, which can complete history with dozens of words. Article 110 of the Court Organization Act clearly states that the president of the High Court supervises the administration of the subordinate district courts. The issuance of press releases, website maintenance, and judgment links are judicial administration and information governance, not interference with how judges make judgments. The High Court at least has the space to require the original issuing agency to re-examine; the Judicial Yuan should establish a nationwide consistent update mechanism rather than letting each affected person seek help case by case and rely on luck. (Article 110 of the Court Organization Act) The system should at least achieve three things: when a case is overturned, acquitted, remanded, or has other major changes by a higher court, the original press release automatically displays a 'case follow-up' mark; a two-way link is established between the original text and the final judgment; clear standards, regular reviews, and appeal procedures are set for name disclosure and de-identification. The purpose of judicial transparency is not to permanently display the most unfavorable segments to the people but to let society see the complete results of legal procedures. Courts can preserve the history of first instance judgments, but history also includes overturning and acquittal. Leaving only the beginning of the prosecution but refusing to supplement the conclusion of the judgment is not called judicial memory but judicial editing. Today, it might be someone else being fixed by the old webpage, but tomorrow it could be any reader. A country ruled by law cannot let the people win a lawsuit only to ultimately lose to the search box; nor can it let the court's own old press releases become the longest-lasting opposing opinion to the final judgment.