Abler apologises after bereaved parents receive course invitations

Software company Abler has apologised after parents whose daughter died as a newborn repeatedly received course invitations and reminders for her, mbl.is reports. The company said it had removed the link between the girl and her parents and was checking whether other families had been affected.

The case came to light in an interview with Björg Jóhannsdóttir, who lost her daughter Júlíana Rut Bergmann when she was only a few hours old, nearly three years ago. Björg and her husband, Orri Bergmann Valtýsson, have a younger daughter, now over a year old, and use Abler to manage her activities. Björg said Júlíana still appeared in the system, so the parents had to choose which daughter to enrol whenever they bought a course.

“Parents who have lost a child should not receive course invitations for that child from us, and they should not have to contact us again and again to get it fixed,” Abler said. The company said it had responded when the family got in touch, but the problem persisted. “We are responsible for that,” it said.

Abler said its system links children to their parents using daily data from Iceland’s National Registry, supplied through Advania. The system imports registry updates overnight, including information about child custody. When a parent logs in with electronic identification, it retrieves family links from the registry; when a parent is no longer listed as having custody, the system is meant to remove the link automatically.

In this case, staff removed the connection after the family contacted Abler, but it was restored the next time a parent logged in. A fix made in February was not applied across the whole system until August, and the link was removed again yesterday. “We sincerely apologise to the family,” the company said.