When computer glitches ruin lives

Imagine losing your home, your job or your reputation, all because of a computer error. We speak to people who say that's exactly what happened to them.

Kim Duncan and her children lost their family home in the US after Kim's bank Wells Fargo mistakenly said she didn't qualify for a loan modification she needed to keep up with her repayments. Meanwhile in the UK, the Post Office is being litigated by former employees who were fired and in some cases went to prison after being accused of fraud - they claim because of a bug in the Post Office's accounting software.

Manuela Saragosa asks computer science expert Lindsay Marshall of Newcastle University whether glitches like these are unavoidable. Do they have to be so damaging, and are they likely to become an ever more common bane of our lives?

(Photo: Businessman sitting in a data centre looking frustrated. Credit: AKodisinghe/Getty Images)