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Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

Brazilian federal judge finds an INSS AI death-record match wrongly ended a living retiree's pension, his only income, and awards damages

A Brazilian federal judge in the 4th federal region ordered the social security institute (INSS) to pay a retiree R$3,917.67 in moral damages after finding that his pension had been stopped by a failure of the institute's artificial intelligence system, according to a Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF4) news item relayed by the Brazilian Institute of Social Security Law on 30 September 2022. The judge explained that the benefit was suspended automatically on 1 May 2021 by an artificial intelligence command that captured data from the death-records system (Sisobi), and that the data used, the person's name and mother's name, were not enough to prevent the wrongful cessation. The retiree said the pension was his only source of income; he asked for reactivation and sent a handwritten declaration, and although he showed in person that he was alive, the benefit was restored only in January 2022. The judge wrote that the AI 'proved inefficient or unintelligent' in this case and that the INSS made him wait 226 days. Arrears were also ordered paid. Whether the INSS appealed is not reported.

AI system
Unidentified death-record matching system
Occurred
1 May 2021
Reported
30 September 2022
Event location
Brazil
What the AI did
Made a decision about the person
Reported harm
Financial Loss
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Public services · Finance · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
4 claims: 4 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: An INSS artificial intelligence routine that cross-matched benefit records with the national death register (Sisobi) using name and mother's name and stopped benefits automatically

Reported harm

The judge found that an automatic AI match with the death register wrongly stopped the retiree's pension, his only income, and that the INSS took 226 days to restore it, which harmed his subsistence.

Outcome

Unknown

First-instance federal sentence (an advanced service unit of the Federal Justice in the TRF4 region): R$3,917.67 moral damages and payment of arrears by court payment order. Case number and any appeal are not reported.

What remains unknown

  • The case number, the sentence date and whether the INSS appealed.
  • What kind of system the 'artificial intelligence command' was beyond a name and mother's-name match, and whose death record was matched.
  • The retiree's age.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. The federal judge, as the TRF4 news item reports, found that an INSS artificial intelligence command cross-matched the retiree with the death register using only name and mother's name and automatically suspended his pension on 1 May 2021, and that this wrong match caused the loss of his only income. The technical nature of the system beyond the judge's description is not disclosed, and the sentence itself was not read.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A federal judge concluded that the INSS's artificial intelligence system failed when cross-matching data with the death register (Sisobi), and that the retiree's benefit was suspended automatically on 1 May 2021 by an artificial intelligence command that used only his name and mother's name.

Causal attribution. The court's finding as the TRF4 news item reports it.

  • ibdp.org.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'O magistrado concluiu que houve falha do sistema de inteligência artificial do INSS ao fazer o cruzamento de dados com o Sistema de Óbitos (Sisobi).'; 'a suspensão do benefício ocorreu automaticamente em 01/05/2021 por comando de inteligência artificial que capturou dados do Sisobi. Os dados utilizados, nome próprio e nome da mãe, não se mostraram suficientes para evitar a indevida cessação do benefício.'
  • wagner.adv.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'a suspensão do benefício ocorreu automaticamente em 01/05/2021 por comando de inteligência artificial que capturou dados do Sisobi'
Reported The retiree said the pension was his only source of income, that he asked for reactivation without a decision, and that he sent a handwritten declaration; the benefit was restored only in January 2022.

Causal attribution. His account and the court record as the news item gives them.

  • ibdp.org.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'sendo prejudicado por não ter qualquer outra fonte de renda'; 'O autor da ação chegou a enviar declaração escrita de próprio punho ao INSS e, embora tenha pessoalmente demonstrado que estava vivo, e não morto, nada foi feito até reativação do benefício em janeiro deste ano (2022).'
Reported The judge wrote that the INSS's artificial intelligence proved inefficient or unintelligent in this case, that its inconsistency harmed the retiree's subsistence because the pension was his only income, and that the INSS made him wait 226 days.

Causal attribution. The judge's words quoted in the news item.

  • ibdp.org.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'a inteligência artificial adotada pelo INSS se revelou ineficiente ou desinteligente nesta hipótese, de modo que a sua ilegitima inconsistência ocasionou prejuízos materiais à parte autora que atingiram diretamente a sua subsistência, pois se tratava de sua única fonte de rendimentos'; 'o sujeitou a espera de 226 dias'
Reported The judge ordered the INSS to pay R$3,917.67 in moral damages and the arrears.

Causal attribution. The operative part as reported.

  • ibdp.org.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'no valor de R$ 3.917,67 (três mil, novecentos e dezessete reais e sessenta e sete centavos)'; 'os valores atrasados, bem como aqueles vencidos entre a sentença e a efetiva implantação do benefício (DIP) serão executados na forma de requisição de pagamento'
  • wagner.adv.br(opens in new tab) supports · Portuguese
    'no valor de R$ 3.917,67'

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in Portuguese on 2026-11-02; translation by the research agent, an AI. Professional association's republication of a TRF4 news item ('Fonte TRF4') on the sentence; the sentence was not read. Applies to s1.

Read in Portuguese on 2026-11-02; translation by the research agent, an AI. Law firm's republication of the same TRF4 news item ('Fonte: TRF 4ª Região'); undated on the page. Applies to s2.

Event countries: Brazil. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Brazil.

The pension was paid and stopped by Brazil's national social security institute, and a federal court in the 4th federal region of Brazil decided the case.

Reviewed for publication 2026-11-02: Published on a TRF4 court news item, relayed by IBDP and a law firm, reporting a federal judge's finding that an INSS artificial intelligence match with the death register automatically stopped a living retiree's pension, his only income, for months, and the damages awarded.

People described

A retiree whose pension was his only source of income

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One person: the retiree whose pension the automatic match stopped.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#public-benefits#automated-decision#death-register-match#social-security#court-damages

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Brazilian federal judge finds an INSS AI death-record match wrongly ended a living retiree's pension, his only income, and awards damages. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2021-brazil-federal-judge-finds-inss-ai-death-record-match-wrongly-ended-living-retirees-pension-awards-damages

BibTeX

@misc{2021_brazil_federal_judge_finds_inss_ai_death_record_match_wrongly_ended_living_retirees_pension_awards_damages,
  title = {Brazilian federal judge finds an INSS AI death-record match wrongly ended a living retiree's pension, his only income, and awards damages},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2021-brazil-federal-judge-finds-inss-ai-death-record-match-wrongly-ended-living-retirees-pension-awards-damages}
}

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