{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-23T08:02:07.634Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"eu","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":14,"coverage":{"cases":14,"countries":7,"languages":7,"unknownLocation":3,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":2,"lawsuits":3,"regulatory":2,"minors":1,"coreRelations":2,"contextualRelations":14,"mixedRelations":2,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2026-udmurtia-entrepreneur-fined-by-russian-intellectual-property-court-over-ai-invented-case-law","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Суд установил, что часть из приведенных предпринимателем в тексте кассационной жалобы 12 ссылок на судебную практику, в том числе одна якобы на правовую позицию, изложенную в определении Верховного суда РФ, относилась к несуществующим судебным актам либо содержала приписанные им выводы; наложил на предпринимателя судебный штраф в размере 5 тысяч рублей","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Суд по интеллектуальным правам оштрафовал на пять тысяч рублей индивидуального предпринимателя из Удмуртии, который сослался в своей жалобе на несуществующую практику.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The Court for Intellectual Property Rights found that part of the 12 case-law references in the entrepreneur's cassation appeal, including one said to be a position of the Supreme Court of Russia, referred to non-existent court acts or attributed conclusions to them, and imposed a court fine of 5,000 roubles.","causal_attribution":"The court's findings as relayed by its press service and by Rossiyskaya Gazeta; the ruling itself was not inspected."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Бизнесмен пояснил, что при подготовке кассационной жалобы использовал сервис, работающий на основе искусственного интеллекта.; Именно нейросеть подобрала судебную практику","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"несуществующую судебную практику, сгенерированную сервисами искусственного интеллекта","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The entrepreneur explained that he had prepared the cassation appeal with an AI-based service, which selected the case law he cited.","causal_attribution":"His own explanation to the court, reported by Rossiyskaya Gazeta; the press service describes the case law as generated by AI services."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Защита предпринимателя заявила, что у него нет юридического образования, поэтому он не мог самостоятельно оценить корректность ссылок.; Оправдаться не получилось.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"представитель заявителя жалобы уверял, что допущенные им неточности и технические ошибки вследствие использования сервисов искусственного интеллекта не свидетельствуют о неуважении к суду; СИП критически оценил аргументы заявителя","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"His side argued that he had no legal education and could not check the references, and that the inaccuracies were technical errors caused by using AI services rather than contempt of court; the court rejected these arguments.","causal_attribution":"The appellant's defence and the court's rejection, as reported."}],"effects":[{"label":"fined 5,000 roubles for contempt of court over AI-invented case law in his appeal","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://1prime.ru/20260827/biznesmen-872750520.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"ru","translation_note":"Read in Russian by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-23 (HTTP 200) and translated by that agent; no human translator or reviewer read it. PRIME (RIA Novosti group) report of 27 Aug 2026 quoting the court's press service (bodies/ru-prime-sip.html/.txt).","independence_group":"sip-press-service-ria"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://rg.ru/2026/09/01/nejroset-podvela.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"ru","translation_note":"Read in Russian by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-23 (HTTP 200) and translated by that agent; no human translator or reviewer read it. Rossiyskaya Gazeta report of 1 Sep 2026 that quotes the court's ruling and describes the parties' explanations (bodies/ru-rg-neiroset.html/.txt).","independence_group":"rg-sip-ruling"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["justice","work"],"unknowns":["The date of the ruling; it was reported on 27 August 2026.","Which AI service was used and what it produced beyond the citations described.","Whether the fine was appealed."],"geography":{"basis":"The recorded events are court events in Russia: the appeal was filed with, and the fine imposed by, Russia's Court for Intellectual Property Rights (PRIME; Rossiyskaya Gazeta). Both reports describe the entrepreneur as being from Udmurtia, a Russian region.","court_countries":["RU"],"event_countries":["RU"],"affected_person_countries":["RU"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a core case (communicated_with, with informed_decision_about): by his own account an AI-based service selected case law for an entrepreneur's cassation appeal, part of it did not exist, and the court fined him 5,000 roubles, as reported from the court's press service and the ruling.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-23"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"By the entrepreneur's own explanation to the court, an AI-based service selected the case law in his cassation appeal, and PRIME (RIA Novosti), reporting the court's press service, describes that case law as generated by AI services; the court's own findings as quoted do not mention AI. The court found that part of the references pointed to court acts that do not exist or misstated them, and fined him for it. The AI service is not named, and its output was read only as described in the reports.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with","informed_decision_about"]},"name":"Russian intellectual property court fined an Udmurtia entrepreneur 5,000 roubles over non-existent case law he said an AI service selected, reports say","summary":"Russia's Court for Intellectual Property Rights fined an individual entrepreneur from Udmurtia 5,000 roubles for contempt of court after finding that part of the 12 references to case law in his cassation appeal, including one said to be a Supreme Court position, pointed to court acts that do not exist or attributed conclusions to them, the court's press service told RIA Novosti on 27 August 2026. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports that the entrepreneur explained he had prepared the appeal with an AI-based service that selected the case law, and that his side argued he had no legal education and could not check the references; the court rejected the argument that the errors were technical. The date of the ruling and the AI service are not reported.","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"unknown","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-08-27","aiSystem":"An AI-based service, not named in the reports, that the entrepreneur said selected the case law for his cassation appeal","aiProduct":"Unidentified legal research tool","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["legal_harm","financial_loss"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"An entrepreneur was fined 5,000 roubles for contempt of court after his cassation appeal cited non-existent case law that, by his account, an AI-based service had selected.","frameworkFacets":[],"pathwayDirection":"inward","causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person: the entrepreneur who used the AI service and was fined (court press service; Rossiyskaya Gazeta).","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"RU","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"regulatory_action","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://1prime.ru/20260827/biznesmen-872750520.html","primarySourceLabel":"PRIME (RIA Novosti), 27 Aug 2026: court fines businessman over fake case law generated by AI","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-23T03:20:50.098873+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-23T03:20:50.098873+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["hallucinated-citations","court-filing","court-fine","russia","own-use","russian-language"]},{"id":"2025-sixth-circuit-removes-appointed-defence-lawyer-over-cocounsel-drafted-briefs-delaying-indigent-defendants-appeal","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'qualified for a two-level enhancement under § 3B1.1(c) of the Sentencing Guidelines for his leadership role during drug-trafficking activities.'; 'serving as court-appointed counsel for an indigent defendant through a publicly funded program'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A lawyer appointed under the Criminal Justice Act represented an indigent defendant appealing a two-level leadership enhancement to his drug-trafficking sentence in the Sixth Circuit.","causal_attribution":"The court's own description of the appointment and the appeal."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'The first tell was the file name of the principal brief:'; '“CoCounsel Skill Results.” CoCounsel is the name of Westlaw’s internal artificial-intelligence'; 'But the purported direct quotations do not appear in their cited sources.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'The first tell was the file name of the principal brief: \"CoCounsel Skill Results.\" CoCounsel is the name of Westlaw's internal artificial-intelligence platform.'; 'But the purported direct quotations do not appear in their cited sources.'; 'misrepresent the holdings of both United States v. Washington'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The court found that the principal brief's file name was 'CoCounsel Skill Results', that three quotations in the briefs appear in no legal authority, and that the briefs misrepresented the holdings of two precedents.","causal_attribution":"The court's findings, quoted verbatim in the Volokh post; the opinion PDF carries the same text."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'he directed an unnamed “staff” member to'; 'upload district court documents to Westlaw’s CoCounsel program to create a first draft of the'; 'repeated that same process for the reply brief.'; 'He concedes that the three inaccurate quotations'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'he directed an unnamed \"staff\" member to upload district court documents to Westlaw's CoCounsel program to create a first draft of the principal brief.'; 'He concedes that the three inaccurate quotations identified above were the product of artificial intelligence, that they do not appear in any legal authorities'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The lawyer admitted that a staff member uploaded district court documents to Westlaw's CoCounsel to create a first draft of the principal brief, that he repeated the process for the reply, and that the three inaccurate quotations were produced by artificial intelligence and not verified.","causal_attribution":"The lawyer's show-cause response as the court records it; the court's opinion documents the admission."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'shall not be compensated under the Criminal Justice Act for his time spent on'; 'to consider disciplinary proceedings under Sixth'; 'Disciplinary Clerk for the Kentucky Bar Association'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The court ordered that the lawyer receive no Criminal Justice Act compensation for the appeal, forwarded the opinion to the circuit's chief judge to consider disciplinary proceedings, and served it on the Kentucky Bar Association's disciplinary clerk.","causal_attribution":"The court's orders."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'different appellate counsel to file new briefs—further delaying resolution of'; 'reset the briefing schedule upon appointment of replacement counsel.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"By a separate order the same day the court removed the lawyer, directed the appointment of replacement counsel, locked the briefs he had filed and reset the briefing schedule, which the court said further delayed resolution of the defendant's criminal appeal.","causal_attribution":"The court's own account of its separate order and of the delay."},{"id":"c6","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'utilizing Westlaw CoCounsel “in this way for a Court of Appeals brief.”'; 'has never been disciplined over his 40-year career'; 'candor in acknowledging his improper use of artificial intelligence.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'first time utilizing Westlaw CoCounsel \"in this way for a Court of Appeals brief.\"'; 'has never been disciplined over his 40-year career'; 'his candor in acknowledging his improper use of artificial intelligence.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The lawyer said this was his first use of CoCounsel in this way for an appeals brief and that he had not been disciplined in a 40-year career; the court acknowledged his timely response and candour while finding his conduct inexcusable.","causal_attribution":"The lawyer's explanations and the court's assessment, as the opinion records them; recorded as mitigation."},{"id":"c7","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'***LOCKED PURSUANT TO ORDER ENTERED 04/03/2026***APPELLANT BRIEF filed by'; 'Certificate of Service: 10/21/2025. Argument Request: not requested. [25-5623]'; '***LOCKED PURSUANT TO ORDER ENTERED 04/03/2026***REPLY BRIEF filed by Attorney'; 'Certificate of Service: 12/26/2025. [25-5623]'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The docket records that the principal brief for the defendant was filed on 21 October 2025 and the reply brief on 26 December 2025, and that both entries were locked under the order of 3 April 2026.","causal_attribution":"Clerk docket entries; they date the filings and do not describe their contents."}],"effects":[{"label":"indigent defendant's criminal appeal delayed while replacement counsel files new briefs","claim_id":"c5","direction":"negative"},{"label":"court-appointed lawyer denied compensation for the appeal and referred for disciplinary consideration","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/26a0105p-06.pdf","kind":"court_order","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Sixth Circuit published per curiam opinion, No. 25-5623, decided and filed 3 April 2026; PDF read in full (HTTP 200).","independence_group":"sixth-circuit-opinion-3-apr-2026"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://reason.com/volokh/2026/04/09/the-first-tell-was-the-file-name-of-the-principal-brief-cocounsel-skill-results/","kind":"commentary_with_filing_excerpt","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"The Volokh Conspiracy (Reason), 9 April 2026, quoting the same opinion at length; read in full (HTTP 200). Same origin as the opinion.","independence_group":"sixth-circuit-opinion-3-apr-2026"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/search/?q=docket_id%3A70724463%20BRIEF&type=rd","kind":"court_docket_index","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"CourtListener search API listing of docket entries for Sixth Circuit No. 25-5623 (RECAP), read on 2026-10-19 (HTTP 200); entry descriptions as entered by the clerk. Party and counsel names in the entries are not reproduced.","independence_group":"sixth-circuit-docket-25-5623"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use","others_use"],"contexts":["justice","work"],"unknowns":["How long the appeal is delayed, and the outcome of any disciplinary proceedings."],"geography":{"basis":"The appeal is from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the lawyer practises in Kentucky (opinion).","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published with communicated_with and informed_decision_about: the court documents that a court-appointed defence lawyer filed briefs drafted with Westlaw's CoCounsel that carried quotations found in no authority, and, acting on those briefs, removed him, ordered new counsel and briefing that delayed the indigent defendant's criminal appeal, and denied him compensation. The harm reaches a criminal defendant who did not use the tool.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-19"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The court found that the principal brief's file name was 'CoCounsel Skill Results' and that three quotations in the briefs appear in no legal authority. The lawyer admitted that a staff member used Westlaw's CoCounsel to produce the first draft, that he repeated the process for the reply, and that the false quotations were produced by artificial intelligence. Reading those briefs, the court removed him, ordered new counsel and new briefs for the defendant, and denied him compensation.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with","informed_decision_about"]},"name":"Sixth Circuit removes court-appointed defence lawyer over CoCounsel-drafted briefs with false quotations, delaying an indigent defendant's appeal","summary":"In a published opinion of 3 April 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit addressed the briefs a lawyer appointed under the Criminal Justice Act had filed for an indigent defendant appealing a sentencing enhancement in a drug-trafficking case. The court noticed that the principal brief's file name was 'CoCounsel Skill Results' and found three quotations that appear in no legal authority and misstatements of two precedents. The lawyer admitted that a staff member had used Westlaw's CoCounsel to create the first draft, that he repeated the process for the reply, and that the false quotations came from artificial intelligence he did not verify. The court denied him compensation for the appeal, referred the opinion for possible disciplinary proceedings and to the Kentucky Bar Association, and by separate order removed him, locked his briefs and ordered replacement counsel to file new ones, which it said further delayed resolution of the defendant's appeal. The court acknowledged his candour and his 40 years without discipline.","incidentDate":"2025-10-21","incidentEndDate":"2026-04-03","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2026-04-03","aiSystem":"Westlaw CoCounsel (Thomson Reuters), used by a lawyer's staff member to produce the first drafts of a principal and a reply brief","aiProduct":"CoCounsel","aiCompany":"Thomson Reuters","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["legal_harm","professional_harm","financial_loss"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The court documents that briefs drafted with Westlaw's CoCounsel and filed unverified by a court-appointed lawyer led it to remove him and order new counsel and briefs, further delaying an indigent defendant's criminal appeal; the lawyer was denied compensation for the appeal and referred for disciplinary consideration.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"established","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Two: the defendant, whose appeal the court says was further delayed, and the lawyer, who was denied compensation and referred. The lawyer's staff member ran the tool and is not counted; no other harmed person is described.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"regulatory_action","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/26a0105p-06.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, No. 25-5623, opinion decided and filed 3 April 2026","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-19T03:16:56.688661+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-19T03:16:56.688661+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["legal","ai-fabricated-quotations","court-appointed-counsel","criminal-appeal","sanction","cocounsel"]},{"id":"2025-eindhoven-municipal-staff-uploaded-residents-youth-care-and-social-support-files-to-public-ai-websites","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Uit die steekproef is aan het licht gekomen dat er bestanden met persoonlijke gegevens naar openbare AI-websites zoals ChatGPT zijn gestuurd.'; 'Denk aan Jeugdwetdocumenten, interne verslagen en cv'; 'De steekproef ging over de periode van 23 september tot 23 oktober'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'In een steekproef over de periode van 23 september tot 23 oktober 2025 constateerde de gemeente dat verschillende soorten bestanden met persoonsgegevens waren geüpload naar openbare AI-websites.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"According to the council letter as reported, a sample of staff data traffic from 23 September to 23 October 2025 found that files containing personal data of residents and employees had been uploaded to public AI websites such as ChatGPT, including youth-care documents, internal reports and CVs, mostly from care and support departments.","causal_attribution":"The municipality's own account in its council letter, relayed by two outlets that share that origin."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'documenten uit de Jeugdwet met daarin informatie over de mentale en fysieke gezondheid van minderjarige kinderen'; 'Maar ook documenten van de Wet Maatschappelijke Ondersteuning (WMO) zijn ingevoerd.'; 'van sollicitanten en reflectieverslagen van medewerkers met daarin informatie over werkprestaties zijn in de Ai-tool terechtgekomen.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"According to Omroep Brabant's account of the advisory firm's findings, the youth-care documents contained information about the mental and physical health of minor children, and social-support (WMO) documents, applicants' CVs and employees' reflection reports were also entered into the AI tool.","causal_attribution":"The advisory firm's findings as reported by one outlet; the report itself was not read."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Het datalek is op 23 oktober gemeld bij de Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.'; 'De gemeente heeft OpenAI (het bedrijf achter ChatGPT) verzocht om de bestanden die vanuit Eindhoven zijn geüpload te verwijderen.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Sinds 23 oktober kunnen medewerkers alleen nog gebruikmaken van Copilot binnen de beveiligde gemeente-omgeving.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The municipality reported the breach to the Dutch Data Protection Authority on 23 October, stopped staff using public AI websites (allowing only Copilot in its secured environment), and asked OpenAI to delete the uploaded files.","causal_attribution":"The municipality's statements of its response, relayed by two outlets sharing the council-letter origin."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Daarom is het volgens het college ook niet mogelijk om mensen van wie gegevens gelekt zijn te informeren.'; 'Individuele gegevens die zijn geüpload in een AI-tool kunnen niet eenvoudig door derden uit de tool worden gehaald en worden misbruikt.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'De gemeente Eindhoven heeft van OpenAi nog geen reactie gehad op hun verzoek, zo liet een woordvoerder vrijdag weten.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'De totale omvang van de gedeelde gegevens is niet vast te stellen, omdat deze gegevens maximaal 30 dagen beschikbaar zijn.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The council says the scale of the uploads cannot be established because the data was kept for only 30 days, that it therefore cannot inform those affected, and that individual uploaded data cannot easily be extracted by third parties though the risk cannot be fully excluded; a spokesperson said OpenAI had not yet replied.","causal_attribution":"The council's and a spokesperson's statements about scope and risk."}],"effects":[{"label":"residents' youth-care and social-support files and job applicants' CVs uploaded to public AI websites without their knowledge (council letter, as reported)","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/6001041/datalek-gemeente-eindhoven-deelt-persoonsgegevens-met-openbare-ai-websites","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"nl","translation_note":"Read in Dutch on 2026-10-12; quoted passages were translated into English by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator. Omroep Brabant's report of the council information letter.","independence_group":"eindhoven-council-letter"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/6001062/datalek-eindhoven-met-kwetsbare-burgers-verwijderverzoek-is-kansloos","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"nl","translation_note":"Read in Dutch on 2026-10-12; quoted passages were translated into English by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator. Omroep Brabant's follow-up citing the advisory firm's findings and a municipal spokesperson; the firm's report itself was not read.","independence_group":"omroep-brabant-hooghiemstra-findings"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/digitaal/gemeente-eindhoven-blokkeert-chatgpt-na-datalek","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"nl","translation_note":"Read in Dutch on 2026-10-12; quoted passages were translated into English by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator. Binnenlands Bestuur's report of the same council letter, so it shares the first source's group.","independence_group":"eindhoven-council-letter"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["public_services","health","work","privacy"],"unknowns":["How many residents, children, applicants and employees had data uploaded.","Whether uploads happened before or after the 23 September to 23 October 2025 sample window.","Which AI websites other than ChatGPT received files, and which account types staff used.","Whether OpenAI deleted the files, and whether any data was retained or used for training.","Whether the Dutch Data Protection Authority has taken a decision on the notification."],"geography":{"basis":"The uploads were found in the data traffic of the municipality of Eindhoven's staff, and the files concern residents and employees of that Dutch municipality. No court is involved.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["NL"],"affected_person_countries":["NL"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-10-06 private-information ruling: the municipality's council letter, as reported by two outlets, describes staff actually uploading files with residents' youth-care and social-support data and applicants' CVs to public AI websites such as ChatGPT, without the knowledge of the people concerned. The scale is unknown and is recorded as such; the council's view that misuse risk is limited is recorded with it.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-12"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The municipality's council letter, as reported by two outlets, states that a sample of staff data traffic found files with residents' and employees' personal data, including youth-care documents, had been sent to public AI websites such as ChatGPT, and the municipality asked OpenAI to delete the uploaded files. The privacy harm is that transfer of residents' and employees' records into AI services without their knowledge. The sources report the uploads; they report no output about the people concerned, and whether the data was retained or used for training is not established (an expert's view on training is opinion).","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["received_personal_information"]},"name":"Eindhoven municipality says staff uploaded files with residents' youth-care and social-support data and applicants' CVs to public AI websites such as ChatGPT","summary":"The municipality of Eindhoven in the Netherlands told its council in an information letter shared on Thursday 18 December 2025 that a sample of staff data traffic from 23 September to 23 October 2025 showed files containing personal data of residents and employees had been sent to public AI websites such as ChatGPT, according to Omroep Brabant and Binnenlands Bestuur. The files included youth-care (Jeugdwet) documents, internal reports and CVs, mostly from departments that provide care and support to residents. According to Omroep Brabant's account of findings by the advisory firm Hooghiemstra & Partners, the youth-care documents held information about the mental and physical health of minor children, and social-support (WMO) documents and applicants' CVs were also entered. The municipality reported the breach to the Dutch Data Protection Authority on 23 October, blocked public AI websites and asked OpenAI to delete the files. The council says the scale cannot be determined because the data was kept for only 30 days, so it cannot inform those affected, and that the risk of misuse is limited but cannot be ruled out. A spokesperson said OpenAI had not yet replied.","incidentDate":"2025-09-23","incidentEndDate":"2025-10-23","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2025-12-18","aiSystem":"Public AI websites, which the municipality's council letter, as reported, names with ChatGPT as the example; the municipality asked OpenAI to delete the uploaded files","aiProduct":"ChatGPT (reported)","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"According to the municipality's council letter as reported, staff uploaded files containing personal data of residents and employees, including youth-care documents about children's mental and physical health and social-support files, to public AI websites such as ChatGPT; the council says it cannot determine the scale or inform those affected.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"unquantified","affectedCountEvidence":"The council says the scale cannot be established because the uploaded data was kept for only 30 days, and that it therefore cannot inform the people concerned. No count of residents, children, applicants or employees is given, so numeric zero placeholders are recorded. The staff who uploaded the files are not counted.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"NL","platformType":"other","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/6001041/datalek-gemeente-eindhoven-deelt-persoonsgegevens-met-openbare-ai-websites","primarySourceLabel":"Omroep Brabant, 19 December 2025: Eindhoven data breach, municipality shares personal data with public AI websites","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-12T03:35:14.550754+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-12T03:35:14.550754+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["privacy","government","municipality","youth-care","health-data","chatgpt","unauthorised-ai-use","netherlands"]},{"id":"2025-alsace-franchise-recruiter-chatgpt-cv-filter-age-sex-origin-criteria-ex-employees-allege","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'quelque 740.000 CV de commerciaux. Chiffre ensuite ramené à 130.000 en seulement cinq jours, grâce à ChatGTP, après application de filtres discriminants, raconte un autre ex-salarié.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A former employee says the company collected about 740,000 sales CVs from job platforms in spring 2025 and reduced them to 130,000 in five days with ChatGPT after applying discriminatory filters.","causal_attribution":"A former employee's account relayed by AFP."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'et à exclure les moins de 27 ans.' and 'il faut (que) le nom de famille du candidat ne SOIT PAS d' and 'un motif de rejet figure en face de chaque nom: \"Hors cible - trop jeune\", ou encore \"Trop âgé\". Les femmes, repérées à leur prénom, sont renvoyées à leurs chères études avec la mention \"Exception\".'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'un motif de rejet figure en face de chaque nom'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"AFP consulted the prompt, which told the AI to exclude candidates over 55 or under 27 and those whose surname was of African origin, and a results table assigning a rejection reason to each name, with women marked \"Exception\".","causal_attribution":"Documents described by AFP; the record does not reproduce them and AFP does not say how many candidates the table covers."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'tous les commerciaux retenus ont le même profil: blanc, dans la quarantaine'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A former employee said all the sales agents retained had the same profile, white and in their forties.","causal_attribution":"A former employee's statement."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'contenait des développements contraires à notre cahier des charges et aux consignes de la direction' and 'a jamais été mise en service et n' and 'a servi à évaluer aucun candidat'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The company denies asking anyone to build discriminatory criteria into its tools; it says a version containing developments contrary to its specifications was never put into service, evaluated no candidate and was built by a since-dismissed former employee.","causal_attribution":"The company's statement to AFP, recorded as contrary evidence."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Le troisième affirme avoir saisi la Commission nationale de l' and 'ainsi que le défenseur des droits' and 'a indiqué ne pas pouvoir communiquer sur un cas individuel.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"One former employee says he has referred the matter to the CNIL and the Défenseur des droits; the CNIL said it could not comment on an individual case.","causal_attribution":"Former employee's statement and the CNIL response, via AFP."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Plus que pro a trié des milliers de CV sur des critères de genre et d' and 'entre 2023 et 2026, Plus que pro a mis en place un système de discrimination pour choisir ses futurs franchisés, basé sur l'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Rue89 Strasbourg reported, from working documents and testimony, that the company sorted thousands of CVs on criteria of gender and supposed origin without the candidates' knowledge, between 2023 and 2026.","causal_attribution":"A separate investigation; its readable portion does not mention AI, so it supports the discriminatory sorting and not the AI role."}],"effects":[{"label":"job-seekers screened out of consideration by an AI filter applying age, sex and surname-origin criteria, according to former employees","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.boursorama.com/actualite-economique/actualites-amp/ni-femmes-ni-profils-exotiques-quand-l-ia-est-programmee-pour-discriminer-8819657638628fd90de0e90be62ff869","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read in French by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-11; quotations in the record are the original French and the English renderings in public text are the research agent's own translation. No human translator or reviewer inspected the text. AFP dispatch on Boursorama (AMP page), HTTP 200, full text retained.","independence_group":"afp-plus-que-pro"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.20min.ch/fr/story/alsace-ni-femmes-ni-noms-africains-l-ia-fait-le-job-pour-une-start-up-103647007","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read in French by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-11; quotations in the record are the original French and the English renderings in public text are the research agent's own translation. No human translator or reviewer inspected the text. 20 minutes republishes the AFP dispatch and credits AFP; HTTP 200.","independence_group":"afp-plus-que-pro"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.rue89strasbourg.com/discrimination-recrutement-plus-que-pro-398436","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read in French by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-11; quotations in the record are the original French and the English renderings in public text are the research agent's own translation. No human translator or reviewer inspected the text. Subscriber-only investigation: only the standfirst and opening paragraphs were readable (HTTP 200); the rest, including any AI detail, was not inspected.","independence_group":"rue89-strasbourg-plus-que-pro"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["work"],"unknowns":["How many candidates were excluded on discriminatory criteria by the AI filter, and whether the filter ran on the collected CVs as the former employees say or never ran as the company says.","Whether the Rue89 Strasbourg investigation ties the sorting system (named Vortex) to the AI tool; its subscriber-only text was not read in full.","The outcome of the CNIL and Défenseur des droits referrals."],"geography":{"basis":"AFP places the company and the former employees who ran the screening in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg, France. The candidates' countries are not stated; the CVs came from job platforms such as Hellowork. No court proceeding is reported.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["FR"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as an automated hiring decision case: AFP describes a prompt instructing an AI to reject candidates by age and surname origin and a results table of per-candidate rejection reasons, and a former employee names ChatGPT as the filter that cut 740,000 CVs to 130,000. Rue89 Strasbourg separately reports discriminatory CV sorting at the company. The company denies that the discriminatory version was used on any candidate, so causation is recorded as disputed and all claims as reported.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-11"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"AFP reports that it consulted the prompt sent to the AI, which instructed it to estimate candidates' ages and exclude those over 55 or under 27 and to require that surnames not be of African origin, and a results table assigning a rejection reason to each name. A former employee says the CVs were cut from 740,000 to 130,000 in five days \"grâce à ChatGTP\" after the discriminatory filters were applied. The AI output (the per-candidate rejection decisions) is the described connection to the candidates' exclusion. The company says the discriminatory version was never used on any candidate.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about"]},"name":"France: ex-employees say Alsace firm Plus que pro used AI to screen out job-seekers' CVs by age, sex and African-origin surnames; firm says it never ran","summary":"Plus que pro, a company founded in 2014 in Schiltigheim near Strasbourg that recruits franchised sales agents, is accused by three former employees interviewed by AFP of building a recruitment tool that screened candidates on unlawful criteria with the help of AI. According to one of them, in spring 2025 the company collected about 740,000 sales CVs from job platforms such as Hellowork and reduced them to 130,000 in five days with ChatGPT after applying discriminatory filters. AFP says it consulted the prompt, which told the AI to estimate each candidate's age, keep those under 55, infer age from the baccalaureate year and exclude those under 27, and require that the candidate's surname not be of African origin, and a results table listing a rejection reason against each name, such as \"too young\" or \"too old\", with women identified by first name marked \"Exception\". A former employee said that all the sales agents retained had the same profile, white and in their forties; another said the AI only systematised a practice already established when CVs were sorted by hand. One former employee says he has referred the matter to the CNIL and the Défenseur des droits; the CNIL said it could not comment on an individual case. The company denies ever asking anyone to build discriminatory criteria into its tools; it acknowledges that one version of the tool contained developments contrary to its specifications, but says that version was never put into service, evaluated no candidate and was developed by a former employee acting on their own initiative, who has since been dismissed. Rue89 Strasbourg separately reported, from working documents and testimony, that the company sorted thousands of CVs on criteria of gender and supposed origin without the candidates' knowledge between 2023 and 2026; its subscriber-only report could be read only in part.","incidentDate":"2025-01-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"year","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-10-09","aiSystem":"A recruitment tool built from late 2024 by the company, which sent instructions to a generative AI to screen collected CVs; a former employee quoted by AFP names ChatGPT (\"ChatGTP\" in the AFP text).","aiProduct":"ChatGPT (reported)","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"According to former employees and documents described by AFP, job-seekers whose CVs were collected from job platforms were screened out of consideration for franchised sales-agent positions by an AI filter applying age, sex and surname-origin criteria. No individual rejected candidate is identified in the inspected AI-related reporting and the number excluded on those criteria is not reported. The company says the discriminatory version was never used on any candidate.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"disputed","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"unquantified","affectedCountEvidence":"No reliable count of people harmed. The 740,000 and 130,000 figures are CVs collected and retained, as described by a former employee; the difference includes candidates removed for any reason and is not a count of people excluded on discriminatory criteria. Numeric fields are zero placeholders.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"FR","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.boursorama.com/actualite-economique/actualites-amp/ni-femmes-ni-profils-exotiques-quand-l-ia-est-programmee-pour-discriminer-8819657638628fd90de0e90be62ff869","primarySourceLabel":"AFP via Boursorama, 9 October 2026: an Alsace start-up accused by ex-employees of building a discriminatory AI recruitment tool","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-11T03:25:30.958981+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-11T03:25:30.958981+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["hiring","recruitment","discrimination","chatgpt","cv-screening","france","alsace","made-decision-about","institutional-use"]},{"id":"2026-zhejiang-toddler-ai-asthma-diagnosis-mother-declined-chest-xray-pneumonia-hospitalised","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'今年8月，浙江一名3岁男童阳阳（化名）的案例令人警醒。阳阳有哮喘病史，妈妈在AI上输入“过敏、哮喘、咳嗽、夜间咳喘”等关键词，AI快速给出“支气管哮喘急性发作”的诊断'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"In August 2026 the mother of a three-year-old boy with a history of asthma in Zhejiang entered the keywords allergy, asthma, cough and night-time wheezing into an AI tool, which quickly returned a diagnosis of an acute bronchial asthma attack (newspaper account).","causal_attribution":"Guangming Daily's account; the tool is not identified."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'阳阳妈妈据此拒绝医生建议的胸部X线平片检查，坚持只开雾化药回家'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On the basis of that AI diagnosis the mother declined the chest X-ray examination the doctor recommended and insisted on taking home only nebuliser medication.","causal_attribution":"The feature attributes the refusal to the AI diagnosis (据此); this is the newspaper's account."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'两天后孩子病情加重、呼吸急促，连夜返院检查发现双肺大面积炎症病灶，确诊为偏肺病毒肺炎叠加细菌感染，紧急住院'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Two days later the child's condition worsened with rapid breathing; on an overnight return to the hospital, examination found extensive inflammatory lesions in both lungs, and he was diagnosed with human metapneumovirus pneumonia with a superimposed bacterial infection and admitted as an emergency.","causal_attribution":"Clinical course as described in the newspaper feature; it does not say whether pneumonia was present at the first visit."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'“他们要是早点听我的，病情也不至于这么严重。”浙江省中医院儿科主任李岚无奈地说'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The head of paediatrics at Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine is quoted saying the illness would not have become so severe had the family listened earlier.","causal_attribution":"The clinician's assessment that earlier compliance would have limited the severity; the newspaper reports it without an independent review of the records."}],"effects":[{"label":"Three-year-old admitted as an emergency with pneumonia two days after his mother, relying on an AI tool's acute-asthma diagnosis, declined a recommended chest X-ray (newspaper account)","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://finance.sina.cn/2026-10-08/detail-iniumumr7827547.d.html","kind":"news_article","access":"read","language":"zh","translation_note":"Chinese body read in full on 2026-10-09 and translated by the research agent (an AI). The Sina Finance page republishes a Bingtuan Daily item (兵团日报, dated 10.08 01:37) credited at the end to Guangming Daily (据《光明日报》); the case passage is told in the newspaper's voice and closes with a quotation from the hospital's head of paediatrics; the feature does not say where its account came from. Re-read on 2026-10-11.","independence_group":"guangming-daily-feature"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["health","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["Which AI tool the mother used.","Whether the tool's acute-asthma diagnosis was wrong in itself or only incomplete; the feature describes the later pneumonia diagnosis, not the asthma assessment.","Whether pneumonia was present or detectable at the first visit, when the chest X-ray was declined.","The exact dates in August 2026 of the first visit and the readmission.","The child's course after the emergency admission.","The family's own account, and where the newspaper obtained its account of the case; only the feature's account, closed with the paediatrics head's quotation, is available."],"geography":{"basis":"The feature places the case in Zhejiang (浙江一名3岁男童) and the treating clinician at Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, so the event and the affected child are in China. No court is involved.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["CN"],"affected_person_countries":["CN"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a concrete account in a national newspaper feature of a parent relying on an AI tool's symptom diagnosis for a young child, declining a recommended chest X-ray, and the child being admitted as an emergency two days later with pneumonia. Every assertion is attributed to the newspaper's account, and the view that the illness would have been less severe had the family listened earlier is attributed to the paediatrics head. The tool is unnamed. The child's pseudonym from the article appears only inside the verbatim Chinese passages of claims c1 and c2 and is not used in the narrative. The worsening and emergency admission after the declined X-ray, rather than the AI's asthma assessment, is recorded as the harm.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-11"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The feature states what the AI tool produced: after the mother entered the keywords allergy, asthma, cough and night-time wheezing, it quickly returned the diagnosis acute bronchial asthma attack. It connects that output to the harm in the next sentences: on that basis the mother declined the chest X-ray the doctor recommended and took home only nebuliser medication, and two days later the child was found to have extensive bilateral lung inflammation and was admitted as an emergency with metapneumovirus pneumonia and a bacterial infection. The account is Guangming Daily's, closed with a quotation from the hospital's head of paediatrics; the tool is unnamed and the family's own version is not reported, so the involvement is recorded as reported rather than supported.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about","informed_decision_about"]},"name":"Zhejiang toddler hospitalised with pneumonia after his mother relied on an AI tool's asthma diagnosis and declined a chest X-ray (newspaper account)","summary":"A Guangming Daily feature on AI symptom-checking, republished by Bingtuan Daily on Sina Finance on 8 October 2026, recounts a case from August 2026 in Zhejiang and closes it with a quotation from the head of paediatrics at a provincial hospital, who says the family did not heed the doctor's advice. A three-year-old boy with a history of asthma was brought in; his mother had entered keywords such as allergy, asthma, cough and night-time wheezing into an AI tool, which quickly returned a diagnosis of an acute bronchial asthma attack. On that basis, the account says, she declined the chest X-ray the doctor recommended and insisted on taking home only nebuliser medication. Two days later the child's condition worsened with rapid breathing; on an overnight return to the hospital, examination found extensive inflammatory lesions in both lungs, and he was diagnosed with human metapneumovirus pneumonia with a superimposed bacterial infection and admitted as an emergency. The paediatrics head is quoted saying the illness would not have become so severe had the family listened earlier. The AI tool is not named. The case is told in the newspaper's voice, and the feature does not say where its account came from beyond the paediatrics head's quotation; no statement from the family is reported.","incidentDate":"2026-08-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-10-08","aiSystem":"An unnamed AI tool into which, by the account in the Guangming Daily feature, the mother entered symptom keywords and which returned a diagnosis of an acute bronchial asthma attack","aiProduct":"Unidentified symptom-analysis tool","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["medical_deterioration","hospitalization","treatment_disruption"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"By the newspaper's account, after his mother, relying on an AI tool's acute-asthma diagnosis, declined the chest X-ray a doctor advised, a three-year-old's condition worsened over two days and he was admitted as an emergency with metapneumovirus pneumonia and a bacterial infection; the paediatrics head is quoted saying the illness would not have become so severe had the family listened earlier.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One child is reported harmed. The mother used the AI tool; the harm fell on the child, so he is counted as another person harmed and no direct user is counted as harmed.","victimAgeRange":"minor","jurisdiction":"CN","platformType":"other","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://finance.sina.cn/2026-10-08/detail-iniumumr7827547.d.html","primarySourceLabel":"Sina Finance (Bingtuan Daily, credited to Guangming Daily), AI热潮下医患问诊之变与辨, 8 October 2026","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-09T03:36:33.441089+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-11T07:43:54.606673+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["health","symptom_checker","children","declined_examination","china"]},{"id":"2017-mobley-v-workday-ai-applicant-screening-job-rejections-discrimination-lawsuit","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Page 1: 'brings this action for employment discrimination against Workday, Inc.'; 'algorithm-based applicant screening tools discriminated against him and other similarly situated job applicants on the basis of race, age, and disability'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A job applicant brought an employment discrimination action against Workday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that its algorithm-based applicant screening tools discriminated against him and other applicants on the basis of race, age and disability.","causal_attribution":"The order establishes that the action exists and what it alleges. It does not establish that the allegations are true."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Pages 2-3: 'Mobley has allegedly applied to over 100 positions with companies that use Workday'; 'screening tools for talent acquisition and hiring since 2017'; 'Mobley was allegedly denied employment for every one of the'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The plaintiff alleges that since 2017 he applied to more than 100 positions with companies that use Workday's screening tools and was denied employment on every one.","causal_attribution":"Plaintiff's allegation as recited by the court on a motion to dismiss. It is not a finding."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Page 3: 'his application was rejected less than an hour later'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The plaintiff alleges that one application, submitted at 12:55 a.m., was rejected less than an hour later.","causal_attribution":"Plaintiff's allegation as recited by the court. The plaintiffs argue that the timing indicates automated screening, and no finding has been made."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Page 2: 'enabling these applications to make hiring decisions'; 'employer should accept or reject an application'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The plaintiff alleges that Workday's tools embed AI and machine learning and determine whether an employer should accept or reject an application.","causal_attribution":"Plaintiff's allegation as recited by the court. Workday disputes that its tools make hiring decisions."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'The motion to dismiss the disparate impact claims under Title VII, the ADEA, and the'; 'ADA is therefore denied'; 'intentionally discriminated against him based on race and age'; 'Document 80 Filed 07/12/24'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 12 July 2024 the court granted Workday's motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part: the disparate-impact claims proceed and the claims of intentional discrimination were dismissed.","causal_attribution":"The court's own ruling on the pleadings. It decides whether the claims may proceed and makes no finding of discrimination."},{"id":"c6","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Page 1: 'motion for preliminary certification of the collective is GRANTED'; 'Mobley is joined by four other plaintiffs over the age of forty'; 'Document 128'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On 16 May 2025 the court granted preliminary certification of a collective on the age-discrimination claim, and four other plaintiffs over forty had joined the named plaintiff.","causal_attribution":"The court's own procedural ruling, which the order says can be revisited after discovery. It makes no finding of discrimination."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Page 1: 'who allege that they too have applied for hundreds of jobs via Workday and have been rejected almost every time without an interview'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The four further plaintiffs allege that they applied for hundreds of jobs via Workday and were rejected almost every time without an interview.","causal_attribution":"The plaintiffs' allegations as recited by the court. They attribute the rejections to age discrimination in the recommendation system, which is not established."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'the plaintiffs filed their class-certification request on September 14 in federal court in San Francisco'; 'Workday has denied wrongdoing, saying its AI tools evaluate job qualifications rather than protected characteristics'; 'its customers control how applicants are sorted, reviewed, and rejected'; 'A hearing on whether the case can proceed as a class action is scheduled for March 9, 2027'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The Black Information Network, citing Reuters, reported on 24 September 2026 that the plaintiffs filed a class-certification request on 14 September, that Workday denies wrongdoing and says its customers control how applicants are sorted, reviewed and rejected, and that a hearing is scheduled for 9 March 2027.","causal_attribution":"A relay of Reuters reporting. The motion and the Reuters article were not read."}],"effects":[{"label":"denied employment on every one of more than 100 applications to companies using Workday's screening tools (plaintiff's allegation)","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"four further plaintiffs over forty rejected almost every time without an interview (their allegation, as recited by the court)","claim_id":"c7","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.408645/gov.uscourts.cand.408645.80.0.pdf","kind":"court_order","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English: the 20-page order of 12 July 2024 as text extracted from the PDF.","independence_group":"mobley-v-workday-court-record"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.408645/gov.uscourts.cand.408645.128.0.pdf","kind":"court_order","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English: the 20-page order of 16 May 2025 as text extracted from the PDF.","independence_group":"mobley-v-workday-court-record"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.binnews.com/alternate/amp/2026-09-24-black-job-seekers-allege-workdays-ai-hiring-tools-discriminate-seek-class-action/","kind":"news_relay","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English. The article attributes its account to Reuters, whose article was not read.","independence_group":"reuters-workday-class-certification-2026-09"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["work"],"unknowns":["Whether Workday's tools, the employers' own settings or human reviewers produced each rejection.","Which employers were involved beyond those named in the order, and the dates of the individual applications.","The contents of the September 2026 class-certification motion and of the Reuters article, neither of which was read.","The outcome of the case on the merits."],"geography":{"basis":"The case is in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, and the 2025 order describes the proposed group as a 'nationwide collective' under US federal employment statutes, which places the applications in the United States. The plaintiffs' places of residence were not read in the passages inspected.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a concrete, court-documented allegation that an AI applicant-screening system repeatedly rejected a named job applicant. The existence of the suit and two rulings are established by the court's orders. The rejections and the role of the tools are the plaintiffs' allegations, which Workday denies and no court has decided.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-05"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The plaintiffs allege that Workday's AI-based screening and recommendation tools decided or recommended the rejection of their applications. The court's orders recite those allegations and found the disparate-impact claims plausibly pleaded. The 2025 order quotes Workday's discovery statement that its Candidate Skills Match tool 'utilizes artificial intelligence' and that customers choose whether to turn it on. Workday says its tools evaluate qualifications and that its customers control rejections. Whether an automated tool made any particular rejection is not established.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about"]},"name":"Job applicant alleges Workday's AI applicant-screening tools rejected more than 100 of his applications on the basis of race, age and disability; a US federal court let disparate-impact claims proceed and preliminarily certified an age-discrimination collective","summary":"Derek Mobley sued Workday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that the company's algorithm-based applicant screening tools discriminated against him and other job applicants on the basis of race, age and disability. According to the court's summary of the complaint, Mobley alleges that since 2017 he applied to more than 100 positions with companies that use Workday's screening tools and was denied employment on every one, in one instance less than an hour after applying at 12:55 a.m. On 12 July 2024 the court dismissed the claims of intentional discrimination and allowed the disparate-impact claims to proceed. On 16 May 2025 it granted preliminary certification of a collective on the age-discrimination claim, by which time four further plaintiffs over forty had joined. The Black Information Network, citing Reuters, reported on 24 September 2026 that the plaintiffs had asked the court to certify a class action and that a hearing is set for 9 March 2027. Workday denies wrongdoing and says its customers control how applicants are sorted, reviewed and rejected. No court has ruled on whether the tools discriminated.","incidentDate":"2017-01-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"year","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","aiSystem":"Workday's applicant screening tools on its job-application platform, which the court's orders describe from the complaint as 'algorithm-based applicant screening tools' (2024) and an AI-based 'applicant recommendation system' (2025). The plaintiffs allege the tools score, sort, rank or screen applicants. Workday says its AI tools evaluate job qualifications and that its customers control how applicants are sorted, reviewed and rejected (as relayed from Reuters). The 2025 order names two tools discussed in the certification briefing: Candidate Skills Match, which Workday said in discovery 'utilizes artificial intelligence' to compare a job posting with an application within its Workday Recruiting service and which customers can turn on or off, and Workday Assessment Connector, which is alleged to use machine learning","aiProduct":"Workday applicant screening tools","aiCompany":"Workday","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The named plaintiff alleges that he was denied employment on every one of more than 100 applications made since 2017 to companies using Workday's screening tools and that the tools discriminated by race, age and disability. Four further plaintiffs over forty allege repeated rejections without an interview. Workday denies wrongdoing, and no court has ruled on the merits.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":5,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"Five plaintiffs who allege rejections: the named plaintiff and the four opt-in plaintiffs whose declarations the court's 16 May 2025 order describes ('four other plaintiffs over the age of forty'; each 'alleges that they received at least one \"automated\" rejection email'). People who may opt in to the collective are not counted. The count records people who report harm and does not establish that the tools caused it.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"lawsuit_ongoing","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.408645/gov.uscourts.cand.408645.128.0.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"US District Court, N.D. California, Mobley v. Workday, order granting preliminary collective certification, 16 May 2025","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-05T03:19:40.629587+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T03:19:40.629587+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["made-decision-about","hiring","applicant-screening","workday","employment-discrimination","age-discrimination","lawsuit","institutional-use"]},{"id":"2026-meta-instagram-ai-assisted-account-recovery-tool-exploited-to-reset-passwords","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"the system incorrectly sent a password reset link to that unassociated email rather than rejecting the request","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"This allowed unauthorized third parties to receive a password reset link for accounts they did not own","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The chatbot can be seen sending a verification code to the email address provided by the hacker","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"TechCrunch was able to verify that the hacker’s public email mailbox, which was displayed in the video, effectively received the verification code.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Through Meta's AI-assisted account recovery support system (High Touch Support), third parties received password reset links or verification codes for Instagram accounts they did not own, sent to an email address that was not associated with the account.","causal_attribution":"Two evidential bases: Meta's own notice to the Maine Attorney General (a party's account of its own system) and videos the attackers posted, in which TechCrunch confirmed that the mailbox shown received the verification code. TechCrunch's check covers that one delivery. It did not test which Meta tool sent the code or who owned the target account, and the videos were not opened for this review. The link between the chat assistant in the videos and High Touch Support is made by press reports and by Meta's spokesperson referring to the AI agent. No inspected document names both. Meta says the tool worked as intended and the failure lay in a separate code path (see c5), so the AI component's own contribution is disputed."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"the hacker opened a chat with Meta AI Support Assistant and asked the bot to add a new email address to the target’s account.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"which prompts the chatbot to show a button to “Reset Password.”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"One video shows a hacker starting a conversation with Meta’s AI support bot and asking it to link the target account with a new email address","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"using a VPN connection with an IP address that is in or near the target’s usual hometown","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"The bot followed through with the request - sending a code to the hacker's email which, when verified, was followed by an email with a link to change their password.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"Attackers asked Meta's AI support assistant in a chat to add or link a new email address to a target Instagram username, and some used a VPN to appear in the target's location. In one video the assistant then sent a verification code to that address and showed a button to reset the password.","causal_attribution":"Every account of the chat steps traces to videos and screenshots the attackers posted on Telegram and X. TechCrunch checked one displayed mailbox. The other videos were not independently reproduced."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"the unauthorized party was able to log in to the account if the account holder had not enabled two-factor authentication (2FA)","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The hackers who released the video on Telegram said their exploit failed to work against any accounts that had MFA enabled.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"Meta's notice says the account could be logged into after the password reset if the account holder had not enabled two-factor authentication. Krebs on Security reports that the attackers who posted the video said the exploit failed against accounts with multi-factor authentication.","causal_attribution":"Meta's statement about its own system and the attackers' own statement as relayed by Krebs. Neither was tested independently."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"it can also take action for you on a growing set of requests directly within Facebook and in the future, on Instagram, including:","relation":"supports","source_id":"s12"},{"locator":"Resetting passwords","relation":"supports","source_id":"s12"},{"locator":"We’ve also started rolling out the support assistant to people who need help logging into their Facebook and Instagram accounts, starting with select cases in the US and Canada","relation":"supports","source_id":"s12"}],"assertion":"Meta announced the Meta AI support assistant for Facebook and Instagram on 19 March 2026, described it as able to take action on requests including resetting passwords directly within Facebook and, in the future, on Instagram, and said it had started rolling it out to people who need help logging into Facebook and Instagram accounts, starting with select cases in the US and Canada.","causal_attribution":"Meta's own product announcement. The announcement does not say which tool the exploited flow used. The link between this assistant and the High Touch Support tool named in Meta's notice is made by the press reports and by the notice's own description of an AI-assisted account recovery system."},{"id":"c5","status":"disputed","evidence":[{"locator":"The tool itself worked properly and functioned as intended; however due to a bug in a separate code path, the system did not properly verify that the email address provided by the individual requesting a password reset matched the email address associated with that user’s Instagram account.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Some of our internal backend checks failed in this instance, but it wasn’t due to the AI agent itself, and we’ve addressed the underlying cause.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s11"},{"locator":"Hackers simply told Meta’s AI chatbot that they were the owners of the target’s account, and asked the bot to link that person’s account to an email they controlled. The chatbot complied with the request","relation":"contradicts","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"Whether the failure lay in the AI agent or in a separate code path is disputed. Meta's notice says the tool worked as intended and that a bug in a separate code path did not check the requester's email address against the account, and a Meta spokesperson told Gizmodo that some internal backend checks failed and that this was not due to the AI agent itself. TechCrunch describes the chatbot as complying with the attackers' request.","causal_attribution":"Meta's account of its own system. TechCrunch's description of the chatbot as complying with the request is a reporter's characterisation from the attackers' videos and does not test where in Meta's system the check failed."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Date(s) Breach Occured: 04/17/2026","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Date Breach Discovered: 05-31-2026","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"May 31, 2026, Meta discovered that there was a vulnerability in an AI-assisted account","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"same day the exploitation was identified by Meta, the following actions were taken to","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the AI-assisted support tool removing the vulnerable code path from production","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Meta's notice lists 17 April 2026 as the date the breach occurred (as 04/17/2026) and 31 May 2026 as the date it discovered the vulnerability, and says Meta disabled the AI-assisted support tool on the same day the exploitation was identified.","causal_attribution":"Meta's own dates for its own system. The notice letter gives the discovery date and no start date. The 17 April date appears only in the listing form, and the basis for it is not stated."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Total number of persons affected (including residents): 20225","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Total number of Maine residents affected: 30","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"reset through the support tool, did not have 2FA enabled on their account and whose Instagram accounts were likely accessed by an unauthorized party.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"This number represents an upper bound of the users impacted as some of the accounts may have been accessed legitimately by account owners.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The Maine Attorney General listing of Meta's submission gives 20225 as the total number of persons affected and 30 as the number of Maine residents. The notice defines the Maine figure as users whose passwords were reset through the tool, who had no two-factor authentication and whose accounts were likely accessed by an unauthorized party, and calls it an upper bound because some accounts may have been accessed legitimately by their owners.","causal_attribution":"Meta's own estimate. The notice's upper-bound wording is written for the Maine figure. The inspected notice does not say whether the total of 20225 counts accounts or people, how many were taken over, or how many are organisational accounts."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"“The password got changed without my knowledge and I was getting different password reset attempts throughout yesterday,” said Wong.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"And I got repeatedly logged out from the IG iOS app[.] Quite concerning.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s10"},{"locator":"it took about five to 10 minutes to reinstate her account","relation":"supports","source_id":"s9"},{"locator":"Wong, who previously worked at Meta as a security engineer, said in a post on X her Instagram password was \"changed without my knowledge\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"Jane Manchun Wong, a security researcher and former Meta employee, posted on X that her Instagram password was changed without her knowledge, that she received password reset attempts and was repeatedly logged out of the app, and told Reuters that reinstating her account took about five to ten minutes.","causal_attribution":"Her own public statements, relayed by four outlets. The X post itself was not opened. Wong does not say in the quoted statements how her account was accessed, and the outlets connect it to the exploit."},{"id":"c9","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"and the account of the U.S. Space Force’s chief master sergeant","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"the account of the U.S. Space Force’s chief master sergeant","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space Force were briefly defaced with pro-Iranian images and messages over the weekend","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"the Chief Master Sergeant of Space Force’s account","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"TechCrunch and Krebs on Security report that the Instagram account of the U.S. Space Force's Chief Master Sergeant was compromised, and Krebs reports that it was briefly defaced with pro-Iranian images and messages.","causal_attribution":"Reporters' accounts based on screenshots the attackers posted. The account holder is not quoted in the inspected sources and is described here by office only. Whether the account is a personal or an official office account is not stated."},{"id":"c10","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"including the Barack Obama White House account , the Chief Master Sergeant of Space Force’s account , and Sephora’s account","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"The Sephora corporate page and the account belonging to the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space Force were also hit.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s10"},{"locator":"The Instagram accounts for the Obama White House and the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space Force were briefly defaced","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"The former US president's account reportedly posted pro-Iran content before it was recovered.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"the dormant Obama White House account (which Meta disputed)","relation":"context","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"Outlets named the Sephora corporate account and a dormant Obama White House account among the compromised accounts, and Krebs and the BBC report that the Obama White House account was defaced with pro-Iran content. TechCrunch's 3 June report lists the Obama White House account among apparent victims with the parenthetical '(which Meta disputed)'. Both are organisational or institutional accounts and are not counted as affected persons.","causal_attribution":"Reporters' accounts. The Guardian, Gizmodo and Reuters name Sephora on the strength of 404 Media's reporting, so Sephora rests on one chain. TechCrunch does not say what Meta disputed about the Obama White House account. The BBC reports that Meta's spokesperson called claims that world leaders' accounts were hacked totally false."},{"id":"c11","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"allowing the hacker to reset the target account’s password and take control of the account — in some cases locking out the victims.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"locking users out of their accounts and prompting a wave of complaints on platforms including X and Reddit.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s9"},{"locator":"One X user wrote that they had been unable to find \"human support\" after their Instagram account was hacked.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"Everyday users complained of similar hijackings on Reddit and X over the weekend.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"}],"assertion":"Some victims were reported locked out of their accounts, and one person wrote on X that they could not find human support after their Instagram account was hacked.","causal_attribution":"Reporters' summaries of complaints on X and Reddit. The individual posts were not opened and the complainants are not identified."},{"id":"c12","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"TechCrunch has seen examples of allegedly hacked handles featuring common forenames or names of countries","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"(It’s important to note that it’s hard to know for sure if all these accounts were hacked due to the same technique.)","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"hijack a number of valuable (read: short) Instagram account names that allegedly have a resale value of more than a half million dollars.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"404 Media has seen text files of huge lists of “OG,” or high-value, original usernames","relation":"context","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"Short Instagram handles were reported taken in the campaign and offered for resale. TechCrunch saw examples of allegedly hacked handles being advertised for sale and notes it is hard to know whether all were taken with this technique. Krebs reports that the attackers claimed the resale value of the short handles they took exceeded half a million dollars.","causal_attribution":"The resale and value claims come from attackers' Telegram posts as relayed by TechCrunch and Krebs. No sale was confirmed and the owners are not identified."},{"id":"c13","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"\"This issue has been resolved and we are securing impacted accounts,\" Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told users in a statement on X","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"On Monday, Instagram spokesperson Andy Stone said in a reply to Wong’s post and others that the issue was now fixed.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Invalidated all existing password reset links that had been generated through the vulnerable path","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"potentially affected accounts into a mandatory security checkpoint requiring authentication before any account access","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"impacted users to reset their passwords and re-authenticate through secure, verified channels","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A Meta spokesperson said on X on 1 June 2026 that the issue was resolved and Meta was securing impacted accounts. Meta's notice says that it disabled the tool, invalidated existing password reset links generated through the vulnerable path, enrolled potentially affected accounts in a mandatory security checkpoint and told impacted users to reset their passwords.","causal_attribution":"Meta's statements about its own response. TechCrunch reports that the response did not end the reports (see c14)."},{"id":"c14","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"On Tuesday, however, more Instagram users claimed to have had their accounts hacked.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"who claimed to still be able to exploit Meta’s AI chatbot, and they were advertising apparently hacked handles for sale","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"TechCrunch reported on 3 June 2026 that more Instagram users claimed to have had accounts hacked after Meta said the issue was resolved, and that members of a Telegram channel claimed they could still exploit the chatbot.","causal_attribution":"Claims by users and Telegram members as relayed by TechCrunch. The claims were not verified, and Meta's notice says the tool was disabled on 31 May 2026."}],"effects":[{"label":"A named security researcher reported that her Instagram password was changed without her knowledge and that she was logged out, and she told Reuters the account was reinstated in about five to ten minutes","claim_id":"c8","direction":"negative"},{"label":"The Instagram account of the U.S. Space Force's Chief Master Sergeant was reported compromised and briefly defaced with pro-Iranian content","claim_id":"c9","direction":"negative"},{"label":"Some account holders were reported locked out of their Instagram accounts, and one reported being unable to reach human support","claim_id":"c11","direction":"negative"},{"label":"Short Instagram handles were reported taken and offered for resale on Telegram","claim_id":"c12","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/agviewerad/ret?loc=4169","kind":"regulatory_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Notice PDF read directly. Its text layer separates words with U+200B characters and detaches the first letter of some paragraphs, so locators from this source are given with those characters read as spaces.","independence_group":"meta-own-statements"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260609035813id_/https://www.maine.gov/agviewer/content/ag/985235c7-cb95-4be2-8792-a1252b4f8318/686120c8-63be-4e3c-b7ed-466d65b672f5.html","kind":"official_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"meta-own-statements"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/01/hackers-hijacked-instagram-accounts-by-tricking-meta-ai-support-chatbot-into-granting-access/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/03/instagram-is-alerting-users-who-were-targeted-by-hackers-during-ai-chatbot-attacks/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.404media.co/hackers-simply-asked-meta-ai-to-give-them-access-to-high-profile-instagram-accounts-it-worked/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read through an Internet Archive capture of 1 June 2026 (20260601172133) because the live page is paywalled. The capture carries the full article.","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/06/hackers-used-metas-ai-support-bot-to-seize-instagram-accounts/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s7","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98rzr72dpyo","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s8","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/01/meta-ai-hack-obama-sephora-instagram","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s9","url":"https://insideretail.us/how-the-sephora-instagram-hack-exposed-metas-ai-weakness/","kind":"wire_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s10","url":"https://gizmodo.com/hackers-tricked-meta-ai-into-handing-out-access-to-major-instagram-accounts-2000766087","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"attacker-posted-videos"},{"id":"s11","url":"https://gizmodo.com/meta-says-thousands-of-instagram-accounts-were-breached-through-its-ai-support-assistant-2000768770","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"meta-own-statements"},{"id":"s12","url":"https://about.fb.com/news/2026/03/boosting-your-support-and-safety-on-metas-apps-with-ai/","kind":"official_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"meta-own-statements"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use","institutional_use"],"contexts":["privacy","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["How many people or organisations lost control of an account is not established. Meta's listing gives 20225 persons affected and the notice calls the Maine figure an upper bound, and the notice does not say how many accounts were organisational or how many were taken over.","Meta says it is unaware of what, if any, personal information was accessed. Whether any messages or data were read is unknown.","The start date rests on Meta's listing (17 April 2026), and the notice does not state its basis. 404 Media quotes a Telegram channel documenting the hack saying the exploits were 'getting abused after quietly working for months', and separately says that the same account originally posted in Telegram about the vulnerability 'at the end of March' (the year is not stated). Neither statement gives a start date for exploitation. Meta's announcement of 19 March 2026 says the support assistant was previewed 'in December' (year not stated in the passage) and that help with logging in was starting in select cases in the US and Canada, so no inspected source establishes the earliest date of exploitation.","The end date is Meta's date for disabling the tool (31 May 2026). TechCrunch reported unverified claims of continued exploitation on 3 June 2026.","The X posts, the Telegram videos and the Reddit complaints were not opened. Reporters' descriptions of them are used.","The notice does not say how many accounts were restored to their owners, and the listing shows 19 June 2026 as the date of consumer notification in a capture taken on 9 June 2026.","Figures of about 34,000 accounts targeted and a SimpliSafe account appeared only on an aggregator page that attributes the first figure to Meta without a citation and are not used."],"geography":{"basis":"Meta's notice to the Maine Attorney General counts 30 Maine users among those potentially impacted. The countries of the other affected people, the attackers (who reportedly used VPNs to appear in the target's location) and Meta's systems are not stated in the inspected sources, and the country of the named security researcher is not stated.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Meta's notice to the Maine Attorney General (a PDF read directly) and the Maine listing (an archived capture) document Meta's own account of the exploited AI-assisted tool, the dates and the affected count. Nine news reports and Meta's March announcement were read in full. The mechanism claim has two independent chains (Meta's filing and attacker-posted videos checked by TechCrunch). Harm to named account holders rests on their own statements or on reporters relaying attacker-posted screenshots, so those claims stay at reported status. Only one account holder who spoke publicly is named. The office holder is described by office only.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Meta's notice to the Maine Attorney General describes the affected system as an AI-assisted account recovery system (High Touch Support) and says it sent a password reset link to an email address not associated with the account. TechCrunch reports that no Meta employee or contractor took part in the exploit chats and checked one attacker mailbox for the code. Meta says the tool worked as intended, that the failure was a bug in a separate code path that did not verify the email address, and (to Gizmodo) that the failure was not due to the AI agent itself. Whether the AI component or the separate code path caused the failure is disputed and was not tested.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about"]},"name":"Third parties exploit Meta's AI-assisted Instagram account recovery tool to reset passwords, with account takeovers reported (17 April to 31 May 2026)","summary":"Meta announced the rollout of its AI support assistant on Facebook and Instagram on 19 March 2026. Meta's filing with the Maine Attorney General (notice dated 5 June 2026) says unauthorized third parties exploited a vulnerability in its AI-assisted Instagram account recovery tool (High Touch Support) to receive password reset links for accounts they did not own, and the listing gives 17 April 2026 as the breach date and 31 May 2026 as the discovery date. Videos that attackers posted, as described by TechCrunch, 404 Media and Krebs on Security, show attackers asking the assistant in a chat to link a new email address to a target username. Reported victims include the security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who posted that her password was changed without her knowledge, the Instagram account of the U.S. Space Force's Chief Master Sergeant, and the accounts of Sephora and a dormant Obama White House page (TechCrunch marks the last as disputed by Meta). Krebs and the BBC report pro-Iran defacement of some accounts, and TechCrunch reports that some victims were locked out and that short handles were offered for resale. The filing gives 20225 persons affected in total and 30 in Maine, and the notice calls the Maine figure an upper bound. Meta says the tool worked as intended, that a bug in a separate code path failed to check the email address, and (through a spokesperson to Gizmodo) that the failure was not due to the AI agent itself. Meta says it disabled the tool on 31 May 2026, the day it discovered the exploitation.","incidentDate":"2026-04-17","incidentEndDate":"2026-05-31","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-06-01","aiSystem":"Meta AI support assistant / High Touch Support (AI-assisted Instagram account recovery tool)","aiProduct":"Meta AI support assistant","aiCompany":"Meta","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm","reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Reporters and Meta's notice report that third parties reset passwords on Instagram accounts and, where the account had no two-factor authentication, could log in. A named security researcher reports her password was changed without her knowledge and that reinstating the account took about five to ten minutes. Krebs on Security and the BBC report that some high-profile accounts were briefly defaced, TechCrunch reports that some victims were locked out and that short handles were offered for resale, and Meta says it does not know what personal information, if any, was accessed. Meta's filing gives 20225 persons affected in total, and its notice calls the Maine figure an upper bound.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"disputed","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"Two account holders are counted: the security researcher who posted that her account was taken over, and the office holder whose Instagram account TechCrunch and Krebs on Security report as compromised. TechCrunch's 3 June article says this account 'appeared to be' among the victims, no statement from the office holder or from Meta about this account was inspected, and whether it is a personal or an official account is not stated. Sephora and the Obama White House account are organisational or institutional accounts and are not counted. Other victims (everyday users, short-handle holders) are unquantified. Meta's listing of 20225 persons affected is not counted: the notice calls the Maine figure an upper bound and does not say how many accounts were taken over or how many were organisational.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","platformType":"assistant","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/agviewerad/ret?loc=4169","primarySourceLabel":"Meta incident notification to the Maine Attorney General (5 June 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:16:54.181323+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:45.477765+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"id":"2026-south-africa-sassa-elife-certification-portal-facial-verification-failures-reported-by-pensioners","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The eLife Certification was implemented on March 30, 2026, as a digital verification tool to curb fraud.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Beneficiaries who fail to complete the process risk having their grants suspended.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"secure biometric verification through the electronic Know Your Client (eKYC) system","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Beneficiaries who fail to complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension of their grants.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"SASSA's eLife Certification is a self-service life certification on its online portal that uses biometric verification through its electronic Know Your Client (eKYC) system. IOL reports it was implemented on 30 March 2026. SASSA said beneficiaries who fail to complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension of their grants.","causal_attribution":"The implementation date comes from IOL alone. SASSA statements read do not give a start date. The suspension consequence is SASSA's own stated rule and no suspension of either pensioner's grant is reported."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"SASSA would like to apologise to all our beneficiaries who could not access our self-service portal after they were notified to undertake the eLife Certification verification process by the Agency.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"there were system glitches which led to delay and disruptions in completing eLife Certification, leading to long queues at SASSA offices.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"the Agency can report that the challenge has been resolved.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On 10 April 2026 SASSA apologised to beneficiaries who could not access its self-service portal after being notified to complete eLife Certification. It said system glitches linked to interfaces with other departments had caused delays and disruptions and long queues at its offices, and said the challenge had been resolved.","causal_attribution":"SASSA's own account of its portal. The statement does not mention facial recognition and attributes the glitches to interfaces with other departments."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"both pensioners, told IOL they had tried to complete the facial recognition option on the portal but to no avail.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"We have been trying since Thursday, April 2, to do the selfie bit but it does not work after trying for 22 times","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A pensioner couple told IOL they had tried the facial recognition option on the eLife portal 22 times since 2 April 2026 without success. IOL published the account on 23 April 2026.","causal_attribution":"Single first-person account relayed by one outlet. The cause of the failures is not established. The department attributes facial verification problems in general to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing Home Affairs biometric records (see c6)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"IOL has been inundated with emails and calls from beneficiaries nationwide claiming they were unable to complete the mandatory certification process.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"beneficiaries cite consistent failures with facial recognition and one-time pins (OTPs).","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The system just kept on loading and never went through to my profile. I have been struggling for three weeks","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Then also indicated that the Department of Home Affairs is not available to verify my particulars","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"IOL reported that beneficiaries nationwide contacted it to say they could not complete the certification and cited failures with facial recognition and one-time PINs. One pensioner said the site kept loading without reaching their profile for three weeks, and reported a one-time PIN rejection and a message that Home Affairs was not available to verify their particulars.","causal_attribution":"Unquantified accounts relayed by IOL. The pensioner who described the loading failure and the one-time PIN rejection did not describe a facial recognition failure."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The Sassa portals are working as evidenced by the number of clients who have accessed the online services.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"As of April 16, 2026, 13,644 (88%) of the 15,499 unique clients who accessed the online verification services via the client portal were successfully verified","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"However, Sassa admitted the system has been working intermittently.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A SASSA spokesperson told IOL the portals are working and that, as of 16 April 2026, 13,644 (88%) of 15,499 unique clients who accessed the online verification services via the client portal were successfully verified. IOL reports SASSA admitted the system had been working intermittently.","causal_attribution":"SASSA's own figures and account, which were not independently verified. The figures count clients who accessed online verification and do not report how many failed the facial step."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"SASSA said most non-verification cases were driven by beneficiaries failing to respond to notifications, not completing life certification, or unsuccessful facial recognition attempts on online platforms.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"In such cases, beneficiaries are redirected to fingerprint biometric verification at local offices.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"The agency said it had recorded 7,779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"The department attributed facial verification issues to poor lighting, unstable connectivity, or missing biometric records at the Department of Home Affairs.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"The agency said it had recorded 7 779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"IOL's 24 May 2026 report on a parliamentary reply says SASSA said most non-verification cases were driven by beneficiaries who did not respond to notifications, did not complete life certification, or had unsuccessful facial recognition attempts on online platforms, and that such beneficiaries are redirected to fingerprint verification at local offices. IOL says SASSA had recorded 7,779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system and that the department attributed facial verification issues to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing biometric records at the Department of Home Affairs.","causal_attribution":"SASSA's account relayed by two outlets that share one reporter and one reply, so they are one chain. The reports do not date the complaints or say whether they concern eLife Certification or earlier online facial verification, and do not say how many were repeat complaints."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"with 67,868 grants suspended in the third quarter alone","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"a grant is suspended 2 months after a beneficiary was notified to conduct a review and has not yet done so","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"around 70 000 grants have been suspended due to beneficiaries failing to come forward for review","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"The parliamentary reply reported 67,868 grants suspended in the third quarter (the reports do not identify the period) under a rule that a grant is suspended two months after a beneficiary was notified to conduct a review and has not yet done so. A Parliament committee statement of 5 February 2026 reported around 70,000 grants suspended for beneficiaries failing to come forward for review.","causal_attribution":"The suspension figures are context. No inspected report says how many suspensions followed a facial verification failure, and the committee statement predates the eLife implementation date reported by IOL."}],"effects":[{"label":"Pensioners reported repeated failures of the facial recognition step in a mandatory online life certification, with a stated risk of payment delay or grant suspension if it is not completed","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"},{"label":"SASSA reported delays, disruptions and long queues at its offices after beneficiaries could not use the self-service certification portal, which SASSA attributed to interfaces with other departments (its statement does not mention facial recognition)","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/2026-04-23-sassa-elife-certification-portal-beneficiaries-report-ongoing-glitches-despite-agency-denials/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"iol-elife-glitches-report"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/sassa-self-service-system-restored-following-earlier-challenges-10-apr-2026","kind":"official_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"sassa-10-apr-2026-statement"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/2026-05-24-sassas-biometric-rollout-leaves-thousands-without-grants-amid-fraud-crackdown/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"parliamentary-reply-iol-report"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://dailyvoice.co.za/news/2026-05-25-sassas-face-palm-facial-recognition-tech-linked-to-the-suspension-of-68-000-grants/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"parliamentary-reply-iol-report"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.parliament.gov.za/index.php/press-releases/media-statement-committee-notes-grant-reviews-are-necessary-protect-poor-and-public-funds","kind":"official_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"parliament-committee-5-feb-2026-statement"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["public_services","accessibility"],"unknowns":["The reports do not say how many of the 67,868 grant suspensions (third quarter, period not identified) followed unsuccessful facial recognition. The suspensions are governed by a review non-response rule, and a committee statement dated 5 February 2026 already reported around 70,000 suspensions before the eLife implementation date reported by IOL.","The 30 March 2026 implementation date comes from IOL only. The SASSA statements read do not give a start date.","SASSA's statement refers to facial recognition on online platforms in general. Neither IOL 24 May 2026 nor Daily Voice 25 May 2026 mentions eLife Certification, and IOL places the reply within a biometric verification rollout dated from September 2025 (compulsory biometric enrolment for new applicants, verified at local offices). Whether the 7,779 complaints and the redirections to fingerprint checks concern eLife Certification at all is not stated. Facial photo verification through the same eKYC system for Social Relief of Distress grant applicants was reported earlier (Biometric Update, August 2024, and Corruption Watch, January 2025) and is a separate earlier deployment that this case does not cover.","Whether the pensioner couple later completed certification, or whether any grant was delayed or suspended, is not reported.","The cause of the couple's failed attempts is not established (lighting, connectivity, missing Home Affairs records, or the facial matching itself).","SASSA said on 10 April 2026 that the problem was resolved, and IOL reported failures continuing on 23 April 2026. The 88% success figure is SASSA's and was not checked.","The pensioner accounts come from one outlet (IOL). A Joburg ETC article of the same date relays it and adds nothing independent.","IOL page dates were taken from the URLs (23 April and 24 May 2026) because the page bodies show only relative ages."],"geography":{"basis":"IOL reports social grant recipients across South Africa struggling with the portal, and the SASSA statement and parliamentary reply concern the South African Social Security Agency's beneficiaries.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["ZA"],"affected_person_countries":["ZA"]},"publication":{"basis":"IOL (23 April and 24 May 2026), SASSA's 10 April 2026 statement on gov.za, Daily Voice and a Parliament committee statement were read in full. SASSA's and IOL's accounts are attributed and left at reported, and the pensioners' failures come from one outlet. The pensioners are not named. No inspected report attributes any grant suspension to facial verification failures.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The sources describe a facial recognition step in SASSA's eLife Certification portal, which uses biometric verification through the eKYC system and integration with Home Affairs systems, and IOL's 24 May 2026 report of a parliamentary reply refers to SASSA's electronic facial biometric system without saying whether it is the eLife portal. The vendor and model are not identified. The department attributes facial verification problems to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing Home Affairs biometric records, and a SASSA spokesperson says the portals work with intermittent downtime, so the cause of any individual failure is not established.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about"]},"name":"South Africa: pensioners report repeated failures of the facial recognition step in SASSA's eLife certification portal, and SASSA reports disruptions and office queues","summary":"The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) introduced an online eLife Certification (life certification) for grant beneficiaries that uses biometric verification through its electronic Know Your Client (eKYC) system. IOL reports the certification was implemented on 30 March 2026. SASSA says beneficiaries who do not complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension. On 10 April 2026 SASSA apologised to beneficiaries who could not access the portal, said system glitches linked to interfaces with other departments had caused delays, disruptions and long queues at its offices, and said the problem was resolved. On 23 April 2026 IOL reported that a pensioner couple said they had tried the facial recognition option 22 times since 2 April without success, and that beneficiaries nationwide told IOL they could not complete the certification, citing failures with facial recognition and one-time PINs, with one pensioner also reporting a message that Home Affairs was not available to verify their particulars. A SASSA spokesperson said the portals work and that 13,644 (88%) of the 15,499 unique clients who accessed the online verification services by 16 April were verified, and IOL reports SASSA admitted the system has been working intermittently. In a May 2026 report on a parliamentary reply, IOL said SASSA stated that unsuccessful facial recognition attempts on online platforms were among the causes of non-verification (those beneficiaries are redirected to fingerprint checks at local offices) and that it had recorded 7,779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system. The department attributed facial verification issues to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing biometric records at Home Affairs. Neither May report mentions the eLife portal, and IOL places the figures within a biometric verification rollout that it dates from September 2025. The reports do not say how many grants were suspended because of facial verification failures.","incidentDate":"2026-03-30","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2026-04-23","aiSystem":"Facial recognition step in SASSA's eLife Certification portal (biometric verification through the eKYC system, integrated with Home Affairs systems). Vendor and model not identified in the sources.","aiProduct":"SASSA eLife facial verification","aiCompany":"South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), deployer","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"SASSA said glitches caused delays, disruptions and long queues at its offices, and a pensioner couple told IOL they had tried the facial recognition step 22 times since 2 April without success. SASSA warned that beneficiaries who do not complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension. No inspected report says that either pensioner's grant was delayed or suspended.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"IOL reports one pensioner couple (two people) who said the facial recognition step failed 22 times. IOL says it was inundated with emails and calls from beneficiaries nationwide and SASSA recorded 7,779 complaints, but complaints are not people and the number of beneficiaries who failed facial verification is not reported, so no larger count is recorded. The 67,868 grant suspensions are not counted because no inspected report attributes them to facial verification.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/2026-04-23-sassa-elife-certification-portal-beneficiaries-report-ongoing-glitches-despite-agency-denials/","primarySourceLabel":"IOL (23 Apr 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:16:13.146866+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:54.03839+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"id":"2025-new-york-union-square-facial-recognition-false-arrest-two-days-jail","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"After his mug shot was generated as a possible match to the offender in an indecent exposure case, he was arrested and spent two days in jail in April before the charges against him were dropped in July.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"was falsely arrested and jailed for two days despite not matching the physical description given by the victim of a sex crime.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Prosecutors dismissed the case last month after ... public defenders, the Legal Aid Society, were able to prove he was falsely identified.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"An indecent exposure suspect search produced a possible facial recognition match to the affected man, who was arrested in April 2025, jailed for two days and charged. Prosecutors dismissed the case in July 2025.","causal_attribution":"The reporting attributes the arrest to the facial recognition possible match followed by police decisions (a photo lineup and the arrest). The inspected sources do not establish what other evidence the police relied on."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"\"The man they were looking for, he was eight inches shorter than me and 70 pounds lighter.\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Location data from his cell phone showed that ... was miles away from the crime, the New York Times first reported.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The man reports that the suspect was eight inches shorter and 70 pounds lighter than him, and reports say location data from his phone placed him miles from the crime.","causal_attribution":"Physical and location discrepancies are the man's account and a relayed New York Times report. The New York Times article was not readable and the phone data was not inspected."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"for NYPD investigators to make the decision to place him in a photo lineup, which was then shown to the victim, who misidentified him.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A victim was shown a photo lineup that included the man and misidentified him.","causal_attribution":"Hell Gate summarises the New York Times account. Its chain traces to the same original reporting as the New York Times article that was not readable here."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"\"I was in the process of becoming a correctional officer at Rikers Island,\" he told Eyewitness News.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"But after his arrest, he says \"they kind of froze the hiring process.\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The man says he was in the process of becoming a correctional officer and that after his arrest they \"kind of froze the hiring process.\"","causal_attribution":"Single first-person account relayed by one outlet. No employer statement was inspected and the current hiring status is unknown."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"\"even if there is a possible match, the NYPD cannot and will never make an arrest solely using facial recognition technology.\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The NYPD stated that even with a possible facial recognition match it cannot and will never make an arrest solely using facial recognition technology.","causal_attribution":"Police statement relayed by ABC7. It bears on how the match was used and does not address this arrest specifically."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"On Monday, the Legal Aid Society sent a letter to the City's Department of Investigation urging the agency to open a probe into the NYPD's use of facial recognition technology","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"who was wrongfully arrested  based on a false facial recognition match","relation":"context","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The Legal Aid Society wrote to the city Department of Investigation asking it to investigate NYPD facial recognition use after this and other false arrests.","causal_attribution":"Advocacy response. Legal Aid statements are the organisation's allegations."}],"effects":[{"label":"Arrest and two days in jail after a facial recognition possible match, case later dismissed","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://abc7ny.com/post/man-falsely-jailed-nypds-facial-recognition-surveillance-tech-failed/17664671/","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"abc7-interview"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://hellgatenyc.com/legal-aid-investigation-nypd-facial-recognition/","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"nyt-original-account"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://legalaidnyc.org/news/demands-ban-nypd-facial-recognition-technology/","kind":"advocacy_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"legal-aid"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/nyregion/nypd-facial-recognition-dismissed-case.html","kind":"news","access":"unavailable","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"nyt-original-account"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","work"],"unknowns":["The New York Times article could not be read, so details attributed to it are relayed second-hand.","The facial recognition product, the source of the comparison photo and the match score are unknown.","The Hell Gate article is behind a subscriber paywall after its opening paragraphs; only the visible text was inspected.","The date of the facial recognition search and match (between the 10 February offense and the April arrest) is not stated in the inspected sources; the incident date is the reported arrest month.","The exact arrest day, the court and the dismissal date are not stated in the inspected sources.","Whether the correctional officer hiring process resumed is unknown.","Which evidence besides the possible match supported the arrest and lineup is unknown."],"geography":{"basis":"ABC7 places the offense in Manhattan's Union Square and the arrest by the NYPD. The man's residence and the court are not stated in the inspected sources.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"ABC7 New York and a Legal Aid Society release were read in full. Hell Gate was read only as far as its subscriber paywall allows. The New York Times original was blocked (HTTP 403 and reader relays) and is cited unread. Claims are attributed and left at reported status. The affected person is not named.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Hell Gate and ABC7 report the arrest followed a facial recognition possible match. The system, the search image and the match output were not produced, and the New York Times original was not readable.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"New York: man misidentified through facial recognition in an indecent exposure case arrested and jailed two days","summary":"Reporting from August 2025 says an NYPD facial recognition search of images from a February 2025 indecent exposure in Manhattan's Union Square produced a possible match to a man who did not fit the described suspect. The man was placed in a photo lineup, arrested in April 2025 and jailed for two days. Prosecutors dismissed the case in July 2025 after his public defenders showed he was misidentified. The man says the process of becoming a correctional officer 'kind of' froze after the arrest. The NYPD says it never arrests solely on a facial recognition match.","incidentDate":"2025-04-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2025-08-26","aiSystem":"NYPD facial recognition system (product and vendor not identified in the inspected sources)","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"ABC7 and Hell Gate report the man was arrested and jailed for two days before prosecutors dismissed the case, and the man says a correctional officer hiring process 'kind of' froze after the arrest.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One man reported arrested and jailed. The offense victim and other people are not counted as harmed by the AI.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://abc7ny.com/post/man-falsely-jailed-nypds-facial-recognition-surveillance-tech-failed/17664671/","primarySourceLabel":"ABC7 New York (27 Aug 2025)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T12:42:09.552414+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:11.583854+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2025"]},{"id":"2025-br-meu-inss-rural-worker-retirement-claim-rejected","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"instantly turned down because the system identified","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"teve seu pedido negado de forma automática devido a um erro de identificação, sendo registrada como homem no sistema","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"In a retirement claim filed through the Meu INSS app, the request was rejected because the system identified the claimant as a man.","causal_attribution":"Rest of World reports the rejection as caused by the system's identification of the claimant as a man. The source is the claimant's account as reported by the journalist. The Portuguese rewrite depends on the same article. No decision record was seen."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"in February was approved in March","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"went straight to INSS directors, who identified and corrected the mistake in the app.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The rejected retirement claim was filed in February and approved in March after INSS directors corrected the mistake in the app.","causal_attribution":"The article ties the approval to the claimant's contact at an agricultural workers' confederation, and states that the case went straight to INSS directors. It does not say the contact routed it."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"had led to numerous rejections, with few options for recourse","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"proving everything, and [the benefit] still gets denied. It’s a humiliation,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Rest of World reports that minor errors in the claimant's claims filed through the app led to numerous rejections, and quotes the claimant saying that despite having all the documents proving a health condition the benefit is still denied.","causal_attribution":"The article attributes the earlier rejections to minor errors in claims filed through the app. Dates of these rejections and whether an AI component made them are not stated."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Each automated decision is based on specified legal criteria, ensuring that the standards set by the social security legislation are respected,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Some policyholders have been misusing the program, filing multiple requests in the hopes of obtaining different results, the spokesperson said.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"An INSS spokesperson told Rest of World that each automated decision follows specified legal criteria, and that some policyholders file multiple requests hoping for different results.","causal_attribution":"This is the institution's stated position and does not address the claimant's specific rejection."}],"effects":[{"label":"Retirement claim rejected, approved after INSS directors corrected the error","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://restofworld.org/2025/brazil-ai-social-security-app-rejected/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Full body read from a Wayback capture (20260128230439id_) after the live URL returned HTTP 429. Original English.","independence_group":"restofworld-daros"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://olhardigital.com.br/2025/04/25/pro/sistema-de-ia-do-inss-causa-recusas-injustas-de-beneficios/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"pt","translation_note":"Portuguese rewrite of the Rest of World article (it credits Rest of World). Read in the original Portuguese by the reviewing agent without a human translator. Adds no independent reporting.","independence_group":"restofworld-daros"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["public_services"],"unknowns":["Whether the wrong-sex rejection came from an AI model, a rule engine or a data-matching step is not established.","The article gives the filing month as February without a year. The year 2025 is read from the article date (24 April 2025) and its present-tense context.","Dates and causes of the claimant's earlier sick-pay rejections are not stated, so this record covers only the February 2025 retirement claim.","No INSS decision record or independent confirmation of the claimant's account was inspected. The Portuguese rewrite adds no independent reporting.","Rest of World's statement that the app rejected requests from hundreds of people is an unsourced aggregate and is not counted."],"geography":{"basis":"The claimant is described as living in a remote town in northeast Brazil. Where the claim was filed from is not stated, so no event country is recorded. No court is involved.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":["BR"]},"publication":{"basis":"A named-outlet journalist interviewed the claimant and the INSS, and the article reports a concrete rejected claim, its reported cause and its correction. The article gives the filing and approval months (February, March) without a year, so 2025 is inferred from its 24 April 2025 date. The AI role is reported and unverified, so claims are attributed and the record is marked alleged.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Rest of World describes Meu INSS as an AI-powered app (computer vision and natural language processing over uploaded documents) and reports that the claim was rejected because the system identified the claimant as a man. The article does not say whether a model or a fixed rule produced this rejection, and the INSS describes the decisions as automated.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about"]},"name":"Brazil: rural worker's retirement claim rejected through the Meu INSS app after the system reportedly recorded a wrong sex","summary":"In February (2025, inferred from the article date) a retirement claim filed through Brazil's Meu INSS social security app for a former sugarcane worker in northeast Brazil was rejected. Rest of World reported that the request was turned down because the system identified the claimant as a man. The claimant, who has chronic illnesses, is quoted saying the benefit is still denied despite complete documents, and Rest of World reports that minor errors in earlier claims through the app had led to numerous rejections. The retirement claim was approved in March after INSS directors corrected the mistake, which the claimant attributed to a contact at an agricultural workers' confederation. The INSS states that automated decisions follow specified legal criteria.","incidentDate":"2025-02-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2025-04-24","aiSystem":"Meu INSS app (AI-assisted automated analysis of benefit claims)","aiProduct":"Meu INSS app","aiCompany":"Dataprev (developer of the app, per Rest of World); INSS deploys it","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"According to Rest of World, a retirement claim was rejected through the app, reportedly because the system recorded the wrong sex, and was approved in March after INSS directors corrected the error.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"One claimant with a rejected and later corrected retirement claim. Rest of World says the app has rejected requests from hundreds of people for minor errors, which is an unsourced aggregate and is not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://restofworld.org/2025/brazil-ai-social-security-app-rejected/","primarySourceLabel":"Rest of World, 'Brazil's AI-powered social security app is wrongly rejecting claims', 24 April 2025","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T12:42:06.218216+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:16:57.309447+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2025"]},{"id":"2026-england-gemini-meet-notetaker-kept-transcribing-prospects-after-host-left-first-person","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'My boss was in a meeting with a prospective client and his business partner'; 'Gemini Notetaker was on.'; 'my boss said goodbye and left the meeting, and the two business partners stayed on the call to discuss the proposal and the other agencies they were looking at.'; 'What they didn't know was that Gemini was still taking notes'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'it was on meet.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"During a Google Meet pitch with Gemini note-taking on, the agency's boss left at the end, the prospective client's two business partners stayed on the call to discuss the proposal and competing agencies, and Gemini kept taking notes of that discussion.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account; the poster does not say they attended the meeting and describes reading the conversation in the notes and transcript."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'My boss sent me the notes and transcript from the meeting to create a follow-up deck'; 'They named the other agency they were looking at and talked about personal details of who they spoke to specifically on the call.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The boss sent the poster the notes and transcript to build a follow-up deck from them; the partners had named a competing agency and talked about personal details of the people they had spoken to.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account of what they received and were asked to do."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'I assumed the notetaker stops when the person who activates them leaves'; 'I don't think they were aware because the things they spoke about were very in detail and slightly scathing towards my boss' proposal.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The poster believes the partners did not know they were still being transcribed; the poster says they had assumed the note-taker stops when the person who started it leaves.","causal_attribution":"The poster's inference from the content of the discussion; commenters disputed it, arguing Meet notifies all participants."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Google Meet informs all meeting participants that notes are being taken and the pencil icon appears on all participants' screens.'; 'The meeting organizer and participants internal to the host’s organization can start or stop notes.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"Google's help page says Meet informs all participants when notes are being taken, shows a pencil icon on all participants' screens, and lets only the organizer and participants internal to the host's organization start or stop notes.","causal_attribution":"General product documentation; it does not establish what the partners saw in this meeting."}],"effects":[{"label":"two prospective clients' private discussion after the host left the call was transcribed and summarised without their apparent knowledge","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"the notes, including a named competing agency and personal details, were passed to agency staff to shape a follow-up pitch","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1wsd4ul/my_boss_recorded_a_transcript_of_a_meeting/","kind":"forum_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-29: full self-text retrieved through the arctic_shift archive API by post ID. The poster handle is not recorded.","independence_group":"reddit-meet-notetaker-poster"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1wsd4ul/my_boss_recorded_a_transcript_of_a_meeting/pckanew/","kind":"forum_comment","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"The poster's own reply in the thread (archive API, 2026-09-29); a near-identical second reply (pckasgw) adds 'it was on meet.'","independence_group":"reddit-meet-notetaker-poster"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1wsd4ul/my_boss_recorded_a_transcript_of_a_meeting/pckasgw/","kind":"forum_comment","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"The poster's second reply, stating the call was on Google Meet (archive API, 2026-09-29).","independence_group":"reddit-meet-notetaker-poster"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://support.google.com/meet/answer/14754931?hl=en","kind":"company_documentation","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Google Meet Help page for \"Take notes for me\", fetched 2026-09-29 (200). Describes the feature in general; it does not address this meeting.","independence_group":"google-meet-help"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["work","privacy"],"unknowns":["Whether the partners saw or understood Meet's note-taking notice after the host left.","The date of the meeting and the partners' location.","Whether the follow-up deck was made or the prospective client learned of the transcript.","Where the call participants were located."],"geography":{"basis":"The poster titles the post '(England)', answering the subreddit's instruction to say whether the poster is in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland; that locates the poster and the law they ask about, not the call. The post does not say where the boss or the prospective clients were during the Google Meet call. Unknown after review.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter's public-forum rule as a concrete first-person account of an AI note-taker capturing and summarising people who were not its users, with the notes then used commercially, described with attribution and without corroboration. Google's documentation of participant notification is included as context. No handle, company or client name is recorded.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The poster names Gemini note-taking in a Google Meet call as the tool that kept producing notes and a transcript after the host left; Google's help page documents the feature. No notes or screenshots were published.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"First-person forum account: an agency employee in England says Gemini note-taking in Google Meet kept transcribing two prospective clients after the agency's boss left the call, and that the boss passed their private post-meeting discussion to staff to shape a follow-up pitch","summary":"In a public post to r/LegalAdviceUK on 28 September 2026, an employee of a marketing agency in England writes that their boss pitched a prospective client and the client's business partner on a Google Meet call with Gemini note-taking switched on. After the boss said goodbye and left, the two business partners stayed on the call to discuss the proposal and the other agencies they were considering, and Gemini kept taking notes. The boss then sent the employee the notes and transcript, which named a competing agency and included 'personal details of who they spoke to specifically on the call', and asked for a follow-up deck built on what the partners liked and disliked. The poster believes the partners did not know they were still being transcribed. Google's help page says Meet tells all participants when notes are being taken; whether the partners noticed is not known. The account is uncorroborated.","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"unknown","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-09-28","aiSystem":"Gemini note-taking in Google Meet ('Gemini Notetaker' in the poster's words; Google's help page calls the feature \"Take notes for me\")","aiProduct":"Gemini note-taking in Google Meet","aiCompany":"Google","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"An agency employee reports that Gemini note-taking in Google Meet kept transcribing two prospective clients' private discussion after the agency's host left the call, and that the boss passed the notes, including a named competing agency and personal details, to staff to shape a follow-up pitch; the poster believes the partners were unaware (first-person account, uncorroborated).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Two people: 'the two business partners' who stayed on the call and whose discussion was transcribed. They were not the users of the note-taker (the agency's boss was). The poster, who reports discomfort at being asked to use the notes, is not counted. Exact 2.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"GB","platformType":"assistant","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1wsd4ul/my_boss_recorded_a_transcript_of_a_meeting/","primarySourceLabel":"r/LegalAdviceUK, 28 September 2026: \"My boss recorded a transcript of a meeting without consent (England)\" (public first-person post)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T03:21:48.445579+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:36.507533+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["first-person","reddit","gemini","google-meet","meeting-notetaker","transcription","privacy","work","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-st-louis-county-gatlin-facial-recognition-wrongful-arrest-lawsuit","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Jan 13, 2025 | COMPLAINT against defendant All Defendants ... filed by Christopher Gatlin'; 'Jan 29, 2025 | AMENDED COMPLAINT against defendant Matthew Shute, St. Louis County, Surescan Technology, LLC, The City of Saint Louis, Matthew Welle, Cody Goodwin'; 'Oct 15, 2025 | MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant City of St. Louis's Motion to Dismiss Count 9 (Doc. 22 ) is denied. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant Matthew Welle's Motion to Dismiss Counts 2-5 and 10-12 (Doc. 25 ) is granted in part in that Count V is hereby dismissed, and denied in all other respects.'; 'Aug 13, 2026 | SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT against defendant All Defendants'; 'Aug 25, 2026 | SUMMONS Returned Executed filed by Christopher Gatlin. Amazon Web Services, Inc. served on 8/18/2026'; 'Aug 27, 2026 | ANSWER to 105 Amended Complaint'; 'Sep 8, 2026 | ORDER granting 115 Defendant's Consent Motion for Extension of Time to Answer ... due no later than September 21'; 'Sep 17, 2026 | MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer or Otherwise Plead ;Proposed extension date September 28, 2026 by Defendant Amazon Web Services'; 'Aug 31, 2026 | ADR COMPLIANCE REPORT ... The parties did not achieve a settlement.'; 'Jul 23, 2026 | AMENDED CASE MANAGEMENT ORDER ... Jury Trial set for 11/1/2027 09:00 AM ... Pretrial Conference set for 10/27/2027'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Christopher Gatlin alleged Thursday in an amended complaint that his arrest and indictment were the product of shoddy police work, poor training, police misconduct, and the use of a defective facial recognition program developed by Amazon for law enforcement use, known as the Rekognition program.'; 'Gatlin originally filed the lawsuit in January 2025, but amended the complaint to name Amazon as a defendant'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'Amazon has until Sept. 28 to file a response to the suit's allegations.'; 'Gatlin sued in January of this year. His suit lists 14 counts against the various defendants'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"Gatlin filed a civil-rights suit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on 13 January 2025 against St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis and named officers (an amended complaint of 29 January 2025 also named Surescan Technology, LLC, dismissed on 8 May 2025); on 15 October 2025 the court denied the City's motion to dismiss and granted Welle's motion only as to Count V; on 13 August 2026 the court granted leave for a second amended complaint adding Amazon Web Services, which was served on 18 August 2026; the county, its officers, the city and Welle answered on 27 August 2026; AWS's response deadline was extended to 21 September 2026 and AWS moved on 17 September for a further extension to 28 September (no ruling on the docket when read); a July 2026 mediation did not settle; a pretrial conference is set for 27 October 2027 and a jury trial for 1 November 2027.","causal_attribution":"Court docket entries; the Surescan dismissal is docket entry 31 (8 May 2025); the 28 September date is AWS's requested extension (motion of 17 September, unruled when read) and the Post-Dispatch's report; the trial date is from the amended case management order of 23 July 2026 (the earlier 23 August 2027 date in the 5 May 2026 order was superseded)."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Eight months later, in August 2021, Shute and one of the other officers, St. Louis Officer Matthew Welle, revisited the case and uploaded a \"grainy surveillance photo\" from the bus into SMRT.'; 'The program spit out a list of names. On that list: Gatlin.'; 'Gatlin was charged with first-degree assault and held in jail for almost two years.'; 'Gatlin's public defender filed a motion to suppress the photo identification, arguing it was unconstitutionally suggestive, and the judge agreed'; 'On March 14, 2024 — more than two years after Gatlin's arrest — prosecutors dismissed the charges.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'Biometric Update reported that Gatlin was arrested on August 14, 2021, and remained incarcerated for roughly 17 months while his case was pending.'; 'St. Louis County Judge Brian May suppressed the witness identification in February 2024 after finding officers had not followed accepted impartial-lineup procedures, and prosecutors dismissed the charges the following month, Biometric Update reported.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'A man who was wrongfully arrested and held in the St. Louis County Jail for two years sued Amazon Web Services LLC along with the city and county over their allegedly improper use of facial recognition technology.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'Christopher Gatlin, arrested by police in St. Louis, Missouri (August 2021)'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Gatlin was arrested in August 2021 (13 August per the Post-Dispatch's 'four days' after the 9 August lineup; 14 August per Biometric Update via Hoodline) for a December 2020 assault on a security guard at the St. Charles Rock Road MetroLink station after two officers of a joint county-city MetroLink team uploaded a grainy bus surveillance photo into the St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System and the guard, after prompting, picked Gatlin from a photo lineup; he was charged with first-degree assault and held roughly 17 months to almost two years; the identification was suppressed as unconstitutionally suggestive and prosecutors dismissed the charges on 14 March 2024.","causal_attribution":"The Post-Dispatch's own account of the investigation and the suit, Biometric Update via Hoodline, Bloomberg Law and the ACLU; the jail duration is stated differently by each (roughly 17 months while pending; almost two years; two years) and the arrest date differs by a day."},{"id":"c3","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'in a statement, the company said its terms of service prohibit the use of its facial recognition technology in criminal investigations.'; '\"We expect our customers to comply with those terms,\" the company said in an unsigned statement.'; 'it said it would \"fully investigate\" any additional information that comes out during litigation.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"'The company told Biometric Update that its terms of service prohibit the use of Rekognition's face-comparison feature by police departments in connection with criminal investigations. Amazon's current Rekognition documentation also states the technology does not support images that are too blurry or grainy for a human to recognize a face'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"Amazon says its terms of service prohibit the use of its facial recognition technology in criminal investigations, that it expects customers to comply and that it will fully investigate any information that emerges in the litigation; Biometric Update adds that Rekognition's documentation excludes images too blurry or grainy for a human to recognise a face.","causal_attribution":"Amazon's statements to the Post-Dispatch and to Biometric Update (via Hoodline)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Gatlin, who now lives outside of Missouri, says he suffers from mental health issues since he was released.'; 'No one has been charged with Feldman's assault.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"Gatlin says he has suffered from mental health issues since his release; the assault victim, who was not the person the officers were pursuing in this suit, continues to suffer lasting injury and no one has been charged with the assault.","causal_attribution":"Gatlin's own account to the Post-Dispatch."}],"effects":[{"label":"arrested and jailed roughly 17 months to almost two years on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024, after officers acted on a facial-recognition match from a grainy bus photo and a suggestive photo lineup; lasting mental-health effects reported","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69538618/gatlin-v-welle/","kind":"court_docket","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (CourtListener docket 69538618, descending and ascending entry pages). Entry text quoted; the pleadings themselves were not opened (no free RECAP PDFs listed).","independence_group":"courtlistener-docket"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/amazon-facial-id-tech-targeted-in-st-louis-false-arrest-suit","kind":"legal_press","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (Bloomberg Law News, 14 August 2026). Only the opening paragraphs before the subscriber wall were rendered; the cited passages are from them.","independence_group":"bloomberglaw"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/more-than-a-dozen-wrongful-arrests-due-to-police-reliance-on-facial-recognition-technology","kind":"advocacy_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (ACLU, 14 April 2026). Lists Gatlin among fourteen known facial-recognition wrongful arrests.","independence_group":"aclu"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://hoodline.com/2026/09/st-louis-county-man-jailed-in-case-involving-facial-id-match-sues/","kind":"news_aggregator","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-26 (Hoodline, 25 September 2026). Aggregates the Post-Dispatch, Biometric Update, IDTechWire and Bloomberg Law; used here mainly for the Biometric Update passages (17 months, 14 August 2021 arrest, Judge May, February 2024 suppression), which were not read directly.","independence_group":"hoodline-aggregating-stltoday-biometricupdate"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-courts/article_21ae18eb-d1d4-44e8-9e8f-0c6f3c92b94d.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-09-26 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 September 2026). The page delivered the article body in the Lee/BLOX ROT47 obfuscation; decoded locally (bodies/stltoday-gatlin-decoded.txt) and read in full: the assault, the investigation, the SMRT upload, the body-camera lineup, the dismissal date, the suit's counts and Amazon's statement.","independence_group":"stltoday"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["Whether the mugshot system's match was the sole basis for the arrest or how it was weighed against the lineup identification; the complaint's allegations have not been tested.","The exact arrest date (13 August 2021 per the Post-Dispatch's account; 14 August per Biometric Update via Hoodline) and the length of detention (roughly 17 months while pending per Biometric Update; almost two years per the Post-Dispatch; two years per Bloomberg Law).","The size of the mug-shot database (more than 500,000 per the suit as reported by the Post-Dispatch; more than 250,000 per Biometric Update via Hoodline).","Whether Rekognition was in fact the engine behind SMRT during the 2021 search; Amazon disputes intended use, and AWS had not yet answered when the docket was read.","The contents of the second amended complaint and the 15 October 2025 order, which were not opened.","The plaintiff's current state of residence (outside Missouri)."],"geography":{"basis":"The assault and the arrest concerned the St. Charles Rock Road MetroLink station in north St. Louis County and the plaintiff was jailed in St. Louis County (Post-Dispatch; ACLU: 'arrested by police in St. Louis, Missouri'); the suit is in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (docket). The plaintiff now lives outside Missouri (Post-Dispatch); his state of residence is not given.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a contextual case in which a facial-recognition system's match about a person contributed, on the plaintiff's account, to a wrongful arrest and roughly 17 months to almost two years' detention: the litigation is documented on the federal docket, the arrest, lineup and dismissal are reported by the Post-Dispatch (read in full), Biometric Update via Hoodline and Bloomberg Law, and the ACLU lists the case. The allegations against the police and Amazon remain allegations.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-26"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The complaint alleges, and the Post-Dispatch, Biometric Update and IDTechWire reporting summarised by Hoodline describes, that officers uploaded the bus photo into the St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System and built the investigation around its match; Bloomberg Law reports the amended complaint's allegation that the system used Amazon's Rekognition. No court finding on the system's role is reported; the ACLU lists the case as a facial-recognition wrongful arrest.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"St. Louis County, Missouri: Christopher Gatlin was arrested in August 2021 after officers ran a grainy bus surveillance photo through a regional facial-recognition system and was held roughly 17 months (Post-Dispatch and Bloomberg Law: about two years) on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024; his federal civil-rights suit (filed January 2025) was amended in August 2026 to add Amazon Web Services, whose Rekognition technology the complaint says underpinned the match","summary":"Christopher Gatlin was arrested on 14 August 2021 for an assault at the St. Charles Rock Road MetroLink station after a joint St. Louis County and city team uploaded a grainy, blurry surveillance photograph from a bus into the St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System, a facial-recognition tool that searches stored mug shots (more than 500,000 uploaded, the suit says per the Post-Dispatch; more than 250,000 per Biometric Update via Hoodline), and built the investigation around the resulting match together with a witness identification; he was charged with first-degree assault and held roughly 17 months (the Post-Dispatch says almost two years), a county judge suppressed the witness identification as unconstitutionally suggestive, and prosecutors dismissed the charges on 14 March 2024 (Post-Dispatch; Hoodline citing Biometric Update; Bloomberg Law). Gatlin sued St. Louis County, the City of St. Louis and named officers in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on 13 January 2025; on 15 October 2025 the court denied the city's motion to dismiss and granted a detective's motion only as to one count; on 13 August 2026 the court allowed a second amended complaint adding Amazon Web Services, which the complaint says supplied the Rekognition program the system used; the county, city and officers answered on 27 August 2026, AWS's response was extended to 21 September 2026 and on 17 September it moved for a further extension to 28 September (no ruling on the docket when read), and a jury trial is set for 1 November 2027 (CourtListener docket). Amazon told the Post-Dispatch that its terms of service prohibit the use of its facial recognition technology in criminal investigations and that it would fully investigate any information that emerges in the litigation. The ACLU lists Gatlin among fourteen people known to have been wrongfully arrested in the US because police relied on erroneous facial-recognition results.","incidentDate":"2021-08-14","incidentEndDate":"2024-03-14","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2025-01-13","aiSystem":"St. Louis Mugshot Recognition Technology System (SMRT), a regional facial-recognition tool created by St. Louis County with an Amazon Rekognition credit in June 2018 and loaded with more than 500,000 mug shots according to the suit (Post-Dispatch; Biometric Update via Hoodline gives more than 250,000)","aiProduct":"St. Louis mugshot recognition (SMRT)","aiCompany":"Amazon Web Services (Rekognition, per the amended complaint as reported)","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Gatlin was jailed for roughly 17 months to almost two years on a first-degree assault charge dismissed in March 2024 after the identification evidence was suppressed; his suit attributes the arrest to reliance on a facial-recognition match from an unusable photograph together with a suggestive lineup (the complaint's allegations as reported by the Post-Dispatch, Bloomberg Law and Hoodline; the ACLU lists the case as a wrongful arrest). He told the Post-Dispatch he has suffered from mental health issues since his release.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person arrested and jailed, the plaintiff (docket; Hoodline; ACLU). Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-MO","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"lawsuit_ongoing","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69538618/gatlin-v-welle/","primarySourceLabel":"CourtListener docket, Gatlin v. Welle, 4:25-cv-00043 (E.D. Mo.), read 26 September 2026","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-26T04:07:10.387911+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:58:41.366922+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial-recognition","wrongful-arrest","police","rekognition","amazon","lawsuit","civil-rights","missouri","st-louis","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-dillon-faces-wrongful-arrest-florida","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'took pictures of the screen with his cell phone… low resolution… partially shadowed and off-axis'; '93 percent confidence'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Warrant based on the FR hit + 'a statement from a restaurant employee who picked his photo out of a lineup'; 'police called Dillon in 2023, he denied involvement citing skin-cancer scars'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The warrant rested on a 93%-confidence FACES result obtained from low-resolution cell-phone photos of the restaurant's surveillance screen (partially shadowed, off-axis) plus a restaurant employee's photo-lineup identification; police had called Dillon in 2023 and he denied involvement, citing skin-cancer scars.","causal_attribution":"The evidentiary basis is the complaint's account, carried by two chains; whether '93%' was system-generated or an investigator's characterization is unverified (the suit says the system 'spit out' his photo as a 'possible match')."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'arrested Aug 2024 in Fort Myers'; 'more than two months later, prosecutors dropped the charges'; 'it took an entire year… to take down his mug shot and expunge the arrest'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Arrest bodycam 'outside his San Carlos Park home' via Gulf Coast affiliate; the Dillon interview ('I don't wish this on my worst enemy').","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'charges… dropped… in October 2024'; 1 night jail, bonded out pledging his truck's title.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Dillon was arrested at his San Carlos Park home in August 2024, spent one night in jail and bonded out pledging his truck's title; prosecutors dropped the charges in October 2024 after work-alibi evidence; the arrest took about a year to expunge, with his mugshot lingering online.","causal_attribution":"The custody and expungement timeline is consistent across three chains."},{"id":"c3","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'suit in M.D. Fla. vs. city of Jacksonville Beach + officers/officials incl. Sheriff T.K. Waters'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Suit 'includes the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the use of the AI facial recognition technology across Florida'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"ACLU attorney Nathan Wessler interview; defendants: Jacksonville Beach PD + Jacksonville and Pinellas County sheriffs' offices.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in the week of 8 June 2026 in the Middle District of Florida against the city of Jacksonville Beach, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, seeking damages and policy safeguards.","causal_attribution":"The suit's existence and parties are carried by three chains; the exact filing date within the week of 8 June is not pinned in the inspected sources."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"PCSO response passages ('patently false'; 'never \"matches\"'; 'rests solely with any officer').","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office responded that a training-failure claim 'is patently false', that 'facial recognition results are never \"matches\"', and that liability 'rests solely with any officer who did so'.","causal_attribution":"The agency's position is quoted directly and preserved as contrary evidence."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'one of at least 14 people arrested since 2019'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'one of 15 known people'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The ACLU counts Dillon as at least the 14th known person wrongfully arrested since 2019 from police reliance on facial recognition (Reason, 11 June); a later WUSF attorney interview puts the count at 15 known.","causal_attribution":"The advocacy count is attributed to the ACLU; the two figures are recorded as stated on their dates."}],"effects":[{"label":"wrongful felony arrest on a 93% facial-recognition hit, with a year-long expungement fight","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://reason.com/2026/06/11/aclu-sues-after-facial-recognition-falsely-identifies-florida-man-as-a-child-abductor/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (11 Jun 2026, Joe Lancaster).","independence_group":"reason"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://abcnews.com/GMA/News/man-sues-law-enforcement-alleging-ai-facial-recognition/story?id=133810835","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (12 Jun 2026, Hipos & Yu).","independence_group":"abc-news"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.wusf.org/courts-law/2026-06-18/ai-facial-recognition-tool-led-to-florida-man-wrongful-arrest-lawsuit","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (18 Jun 2026, Lyden/Peddie).","independence_group":"wusf"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["The exact filing date within the week of 8 June 2026 and the docket number are not pinned in the inspected sources.","Whether the '93%' figure was system-generated or an investigator's characterization is unverified.","The lineup procedure's details (who administered it and how) are only partly reported.","The expungement's completion date is given only as 'about a year' after the arrest.","The actual perpetrator of the 2023 luring attempt is not reported as identified."],"geography":{"basis":"Event: the warrant (Jacksonville Beach) and the arrest (San Carlos Park / Fort Myers), Florida. Affected person: Dillon, Florida. Court: the felony charge (dropped) and the federal suit in the Middle District of Florida.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an institutional automated-decision case (made_decision_about / made_claim_about): a facial-recognition hit treated as warrant-grade identification, documented by three independent chains including the ACLU's own attorney and the vendor agency's response. Dillon spoke publicly; the PCSO denial is preserved as contrary evidence.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The warrant rested on the FACES 93%-confidence result plus a lineup identification, per the complaint as carried by Reason and WUSF; the vendor (Pinellas County Sheriff's Office FACES) is confirmed by WUSF, and the PCSO's own response acknowledges its technology's role while rejecting liability.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about","made_claim_about"]},"name":"Florida: 93% facial-recognition hit led to Robert Dillon's arrest as an attempted child abductor; charges dropped, ACLU suit filed","summary":"In August 2024, Robert Dillon, a 52-year-old self-employed commercial crabber from the Fort Myers area, was arrested at his San Carlos Park home on a third-degree felony warrant for the attempted luring of a child at a Jacksonville Beach McDonald's in November 2023 — a crime he had no part in. The warrant rested on a 93%-confidence result from FACES, the Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System maintained by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, run against low-resolution cell-phone photos of a surveillance screen, plus a restaurant employee's photo-lineup identification. Dillon spent a night in jail and bonded out against his truck's title; prosecutors dropped the charges in October 2024 after work-alibi evidence, but it took about a year to expunge the arrest and remove his mugshot. In June 2026 the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit (M.D. Fla.) against Jacksonville Beach, the Jacksonville sheriff and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, calling Dillon one of at least 14 known wrongful arrests from police reliance on facial recognition since 2019.","incidentDate":"2024-08-01","incidentEndDate":"2024-10-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-06-11","aiSystem":"FACES (Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System), Pinellas County Sheriff's Office","aiProduct":"FACES facial recognition","aiCompany":"Pinellas County Sheriff's Office (FACES centralized database)","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["legal_harm","reputational_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Arrested at home on a child-abduction-class felony from a 93% facial-recognition hit on grainy screen photos; a night in jail, two months to clear the charge, and about a year to expunge the record and remove the mugshot.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One documented harmed person: Dillon, the misidentified arrestee (three independent chains). The child in the underlying luring attempt is a victim of the actual perpetrator, not of the misidentification, and is not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"lawsuit_filed","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://reason.com/2026/06/11/aclu-sues-after-facial-recognition-falsely-identifies-florida-man-as-a-child-abductor/","primarySourceLabel":"Reason (11 Jun 2026, Joe Lancaster) — complaint-based account: the screen photos, the 93% hit, the arrest, the expungement, the suit","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-15T10:27:54.71948+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:35.503237+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["made-decision-about","made-claim-about","facial-recognition","wrongful-arrest","justice","florida","aclu"]},{"id":"2026-broffoni-google-ai-false-identification","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Una mujer a la que no conocía le avisó que en varios grupos de WhatsApp de Ceuta estaban circulando videos e imágenes suyas y que se decía que estaba proporcionando gas pimienta a inmigrantes marroquíes'; 'Recibí amenazas de muerte, de violación y ataques en general.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 26 August 2026, WhatsApp groups in Ceuta circulated videos and images claiming Flavia Broffoni was a woman filmed there allegedly giving pepper spray to Moroccan migrants, and she received death and rape threats.","causal_attribution":"Broffoni's account to La Nación, supported by the warning email and the group screenshot shown to the outlet. One reporting chain; the threats are her report, attributed."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Screenshot passage: 'uno de los usuarios había tomado un recorte del rostro de la mujer del video y lo había ingresado en una herramienta de inteligencia artificial de Google para consultarle quién era. La consulta incluía como contexto la palabra \"activista\". La respuesta identificaba a la persona de la fotografía como Flavia Broffoni'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Google Argentina response: 'no pueden confirmar que la captura corresponda a una respuesta generada por sus sistemas porque no cuentan con un enlace al resultado original'; no formal report received.","relation":"context","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The identification originated from a Google AI answer: a group user cropped the woman's face from the video and queried a Google AI tool with the context word 'activista'; the answer identified her as Flavia Broffoni and described her public profile.","causal_attribution":"The screenshot is the evidence of the AI answer; Google neither confirmed nor denied its provenance. The claim is attributed to the screenshot account, not asserted as independently proven."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Este medio también probó utilizar la búsqueda de Google a partir del video de la mujer que filmó en Ceuta, y la respuesta de la IA fue afirmar que se trataba de otra persona, una estudiante y community manager oriunda de Quilmes, de la cual brindó datos personales y redes sociales.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"La Nación itself ran the same video through Google's search and the AI asserted the woman was a different person — a student and community manager from Quilmes — and supplied her personal data and social networks.","causal_attribution":"The outlet documents its own replication test — direct evidence that the tool produces false identifications from this input; the second misidentified person is not counted as harmed (no virality-driven harm to her is reported)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Yo estoy en la Patagonia, Argentina y nunca tuve relación con lo que está ocurriendo allá. La última vez que estuve en España, si mal no recuerdo, fue en 2014'; the 'tres mentiras' analysis; the others'-tests passage ('muy probablemente', short brown hair vs her current long grey hair).","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Broffoni says she is not the woman in the video and was in Patagonia, having last visited Spain in 2014; she also notes there is no evidence the real woman distributed pepper spray, and that tests by other people with the same photo sometimes produced refusals and sometimes 'muy probablemente' her, justified partly from outdated photos.","causal_attribution":"Her account; the factual impossibility is uncontested in the inspected reporting. The real woman in the video is unidentified and the pepper-spray claim about her is unverified."}],"effects":[{"label":"false AI identification attached to an invented accusation, followed by death and rape threats","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/una-ia-identifico-erroneamente-a-una-activista-argentina-en-un-video-de-ceuta-denuncia-hostigamiento-nid28082026/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"es","translation_note":"Read in Spanish on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2026-08-28T15:09Z; 25 substantive paragraphs including the Broffoni interview, the screenshot account, the outlet's own test and Google Argentina's response). Model translation, no human reviewer.","independence_group":"la-nacion"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["unknown"],"contexts":["everyday_life","privacy"],"unknowns":["Which Google product produced the identification is not named in the inspected reporting; only 'una herramienta de inteligencia artificial de Google' is described.","Whether a formal complaint or lawsuit was filed after 28 August 2026 is not reported.","The identity of the woman actually filmed in Ceuta, and any basis for the pepper-spray claim about her, is unknown.","The student from Quilmes falsely identified in La Nación's test: whether she experienced any harm from the tool's identification is unreported.","The reach of the false identification beyond the Ceuta WhatsApp groups (views, reshares) is not quantified."],"geography":{"basis":"Event: the identification and its circulation happened in Ceuta — the screenshot came from a Ceuta WhatsApp group and the warning sender is described as a citizen of Ceuta. Affected person: Broffoni is in Epuyén, Chubut, Argentine Patagonia ('Yo estoy en la Patagonia, Argentina'). No court proceeding is reported.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["ES"],"affected_person_countries":["AR"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a consequential false claim about a person (made_claim_about): a named adult publicly pursuing accountability, documented through one strong original chain that includes the outlet's own replication of the failure. Threats are attributed to her account; the AI answer's provenance is attributed to the screenshot account with Google's neither-confirm-nor-deny response recorded.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The WhatsApp-group screenshot shows a Google AI answer naming Broffoni from a face crop with 'activista' context; La Nación independently reproduced a false identification of a different person from the same video; Broffoni reports that tests by others sometimes produced 'muy probablemente' her. Google Argentina neither confirmed nor denied that the screenshot came from its systems, asking for the original link. The specific product is not named in the inspected reporting.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Argentine activist reports threats after an alleged Google AI misidentification","summary":"On 26 August 2026, WhatsApp groups in Ceuta circulated videos and images claiming that Argentine political scientist and activist Flavia Broffoni — who was in Patagonia and had not been to Spain since 2014 — was a woman filmed in Ceuta allegedly giving pepper spray to Moroccan migrants. A screenshot from one group shows that a user cropped the woman's face from the video and asked a Google AI tool who she was, with the word 'activista' as context; the answer identified her as Flavia Broffoni with details of her public profile. Broffoni received death and rape threats. La Nación's own test with the same video produced a different false identification — a student from Quilmes, with her personal data. Google Argentina said it could not confirm the screenshot came from its systems without the original link and had received no formal report. Broffoni is weighing legal action with her lawyer.","incidentDate":"2026-08-26","incidentEndDate":"2026-08-28","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-08-28","aiSystem":"Google AI tool answering a face-crop query (product not named in inspected reporting)","aiProduct":"Unidentified Google AI tool (reported)","aiCompany":"Google","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A false AI identification attached to an invented accusation spread in Ceuta WhatsApp groups brought death and rape threats to a woman who was demonstrably on another continent, plus reputational damage she is now addressing with a lawyer.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"One documented harmed person: Broffoni, named and interviewed. The student from Quilmes falsely identified in La Nación's own test is not counted — no harm to her from virality is reported (the test was the outlet's own); she is recorded in the unknowns.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"AR","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/una-ia-identifico-erroneamente-a-una-activista-argentina-en-un-video-de-ceuta-denuncia-hostigamiento-nid28082026/","primarySourceLabel":"La Nación (28 Aug 2026, Aldana Rizzuto) — interview with Broffoni, the WhatsApp screenshot account, the outlet's own replication test, and Google Argentina's response","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-15T09:23:34.062763+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T11:08:54.009102+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["made-claim-about","false-identification","google-ai","argentina","ceuta","threats","defamation-adjacent"]}]}