{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-28T06:47:51.046Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"human-review","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":2,"coverage":{"cases":2,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":1,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":1,"minors":0,"coreRelations":1,"contextualRelations":2,"mixedRelations":1,"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":"2019-flanders-google-assistant-recordings-leaked-by-contract-reviewer-some-captured-without-wake-word","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'VRT NWS was able to listen to more than a thousand excerpts recorded via Google Assistant'; 'In the aftermath of the Amazon case, we were able to talk to someone who works for a Google subcontractor'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'we partner with language experts around the world who understand the nuances and accents of a specific language'; 'one of these language reviewers has violated our data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Excerpts of audio recorded by Google Home speakers and the Google Assistant app were transcribed by contract language reviewers, and more than a thousand Dutch-language excerpts reached VRT NWS from someone working for a Google subcontractor.","causal_attribution":"Reported by VRT from its own access to the excerpts; Google confirms that a language reviewer leaked Dutch audio data."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'153 of which were conversations that should never have been recorded and during which the command ‘Okay Google’ was clearly not given.'; 'as soon as someone in the vicinity utters a word that sounds a bit like ’Okay Google’, Google Home starts to record.'; 'Most of these recordings were made consciously, but Google also listens to conversations that should never have been recorded'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"VRT says 153 of the excerpts were conversations in which the command \"Okay Google\" was clearly not given, recorded when the speaker reacted to words that sound like it; it says most of the recordings it heard were made consciously.","causal_attribution":"VRT's count from its own listening; Google does not give a count for the leaked set."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Rarely, devices that have the Google Assistant built in may experience what we call a “false accept.”'; 'that our software interpreted to be the hotword'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Google says devices with the Assistant built in may rarely have a \"false accept\", when its software interprets background noise or words as the hotword.","causal_attribution":"The company's own published description of how its hotword detection can misfire."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'In these recordings we could clearly hear addresses and other sensitive information. This made it easy for us to find the people involved and confront them with the audio recordings.'; 'We let ordinary Flemish people hear some of their own recordings.'; 'immediately recognise the voice of their son and their grandchild'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"VRT says it could hear addresses and other sensitive information in the recordings, found the people involved, and played them their recordings; one man recognised his own voice and a couple recognised the voices of their son and grandchild.","causal_attribution":"VRT's own account of identifying people from the leaked recordings."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'bedroom conversations, conversations between parents and their children, but also blazing rows and professional phone calls containing lots of private information'; 'he heard a woman who was in definite distress'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"VRT describes unintended recordings of bedroom conversations, conversations between parents and children, rows and professional calls, and a reviewer who described a recording of a woman in definite distress.","causal_attribution":"VRT's description of the content, including a reviewer's account relayed by VRT."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'These are not linked to any personal or identifiable information'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Audio snippets are not associated with user accounts as part of the review process, and reviewers are directed not to transcribe background conversations or other noises'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Google said the excerpts reviewed were not linked to personal or identifiable information and that reviewers are directed not to transcribe background conversations.","causal_attribution":"Google's position, recorded as context to VRT's identification of people."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'taking the decision to manually suspend audio reviews of Google Assistant across the whole of Europe, and doing so on July 10, after learning of the data leak'; 'Google Ireland filed an Article 33 breach notification'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"According to TechCrunch, Google suspended manual reviews of Assistant audio across Europe on 10 July 2019 after learning of the leak, and Google Ireland filed a breach notification with the Irish Data Protection Commission.","causal_attribution":"Google's and the Irish regulator's statements as relayed by TechCrunch."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'begin an “urgency procedure” under Article 66'; 'have committed to the continued suspension of processing for a period of at least three months starting today (1 August)'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"According to TechCrunch, the Hamburg data protection authority began an urgency procedure under Article 66 of the GDPR against the human reviews, and the Irish regulator said Google had committed to continue the suspension for at least three months from 1 August 2019.","causal_attribution":"Regulators' statements as relayed by TechCrunch; the Hamburg statement itself was not read."}],"effects":[{"label":"Private household recordings held by the Assistant service, some made without the wake phrase, leaked to journalists who identified people in them","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/07/10/google-employees-are-eavesdropping-even-in-flemish-living-rooms/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-28 (vrt.be, HTTP 200, the broadcaster's English-language version of its report). The embedded video report was not watched. No translation was needed; the research agent (an AI) read the text directly.","independence_group":"vrt-nws-google-assistant-leak"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://blog.google/products/assistant/more-information-about-our-processes-safeguard-speech-data/","kind":"company_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-28 (blog.google, HTTP 200 after redirect to the current blog path). The page metadata gives a publication date of 11 July 2019. No translation was needed.","independence_group":"google-statement-speech-data"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/02/google-ordered-to-halt-human-review-of-voice-ai-recordings-over-privacy-risks/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-28 (techcrunch.com, HTTP 200). It relays the Hamburg authority's German statement, an Irish Data Protection Commission statement and Google statements; the Hamburg statement itself was not read (its old URL returned 404). Its account of the leak relays VRT. No translation was needed.","independence_group":"techcrunch-hamburg-order"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["unknown"],"contexts":["privacy","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["When the leaked recordings were made.","Whether the identified people's recordings were among those made without the wake phrase.","Whether the people identified were the owners or users of the devices.","How many people were heard in the leaked excerpts.","What the Hamburg authority finally decided and how Google later changed its review practices (not inspected)."],"geography":{"basis":"VRT says it played recordings to ordinary Flemish people it identified from the excerpts, which places the identified people and the disclosure to them in Belgium. The reviewers worked on Dutch recordings for Flanders and the Netherlands; no Dutch person is described.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["BE"],"affected_person_countries":["BE"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as an actual disclosure of private information captured by an AI voice assistant: VRT NWS heard more than a thousand Assistant recordings leaked by a contract reviewer, 153 made without the wake phrase, and identified people from them; Google confirmed the leak and described false accepts of its hotword detection. The harm counted is the disclosure of conversations captured without the wake phrase; VRT says most recordings were made consciously, so the people it identified are not counted. Regulatory responses are attributed to TechCrunch's report of the regulators' statements.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-28"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Google Assistant recorded audio from Google Home speakers and the Assistant app into Google's speech service; VRT says 153 of the leaked excerpts were conversations in which \"Okay Google\" was not said, and Google states that its software sometimes interprets background noise or words as the hotword (a false accept). Excerpts held by the Assistant service were given to contract language reviewers, one of whom, Google confirms, leaked Dutch audio; VRT used addresses and other details in the recordings to identify people, who recognised their own and relatives' voices. VRT says most of the recordings it heard were made consciously; the AI system's own contribution is the capture of conversations without the wake phrase, and VRT does not say whether the people it identified were heard in those recordings.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["received_personal_information"]},"name":"Belgian broadcaster says a Google contract reviewer leaked over 1,000 Assistant recordings, some made without the wake phrase, and it identified people in them","summary":"On 10 July 2019 the Belgian public broadcaster VRT NWS reported that it had listened to more than a thousand audio excerpts recorded by Google Home smart speakers and the Google Assistant phone app, passed to it by someone working for a Google subcontractor that transcribes Dutch-language recordings to improve Google's speech recognition. VRT said 153 of the excerpts were conversations in which \"Okay Google\" was clearly not said, and that it could hear addresses and other sensitive information, which let it find and visit people in Flanders who recognised their own or relatives' voices. Google said one of its language reviewers had leaked confidential Dutch audio data, and explained that its devices rarely have \"false accepts\", when background noise or words are interpreted as the hotword. Google suspended human review of Assistant audio in Europe, and the Hamburg data protection authority began an urgency procedure under Article 66 of the GDPR to stop the reviews for three months, according to TechCrunch.","incidentDate":"2019-01-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"year","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2019-07-10","aiSystem":"Google Assistant voice assistant on Google Home smart speakers and the Google Assistant smartphone app, with hotword detection and speech recognition; excerpts of its recordings were transcribed by contract language reviewers","aiProduct":"Google Assistant","aiCompany":"Google","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"VRT NWS says it heard more than a thousand leaked Google Assistant recordings, 153 made without \"Okay Google\", and identified people in them; Google confirmed a reviewer leaked Dutch audio (loss of privacy).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"unquantified","affectedCountEvidence":"VRT NWS says 153 of the more than a thousand excerpts it heard were conversations recorded without \"Okay Google\" being said; those are the recordings the AI system captured without the speakers' knowledge, and the number of people heard in them is not reported, so the count is unquantified. VRT says most of the recordings were made consciously, and it does not say whether the people it identified (a man who recognised his own voice; a couple who recognised their son and grandchild) were heard in recordings made without the wake phrase, so they are not counted.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"unknown","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"regulatory_action","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/07/10/google-employees-are-eavesdropping-even-in-flemish-living-rooms/","primarySourceLabel":"VRT NWS, 10 July 2019: Google employees are eavesdropping, even in your living room, VRT NWS has discovered","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-28T03:09:05.610569+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-28T03:09:05.610569+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["voice-assistant","smart-speaker","false-activation","human-review","recording-leak","privacy","gdpr","regulator-action"]},{"id":"2026-openai-ai-support-assistant-refused-chatgpt-pro-refund-requested-minutes-after-renewal-first-person","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'my ChatGPT Pro plan renewed for $200'; 'I forgot to cancel beforehand and did not intend to renew'; '13:32:55'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'approximately six minutes after the charge'; 'Tbilisi, UTC+4'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster says their ChatGPT Pro plan renewed for $200 on 3 October 2026 after they forgot to cancel, and that they requested a refund in the Help Center about six minutes after the charge.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'The AI declined without giving a reason specific to my account'; 'This case is closed. Create a new case to receive support.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'The Help Center assistant gave a generic refusal without identifying which eligibility requirement I failed'; 'When I asked for escalation, the case was closed'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The poster says the Help Center AI assistant declined the refund without a reason specific to their account and, when they asked for escalation, the chat showed the case as closed.","causal_attribution":"Poster attributes the refusal to an AI assistant; whether the decision followed fixed policy rules or human configuration is not known."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'I opened another case specifically requesting a human billing specialist. Same generic refusal.'; 'another refusal arrived, explicitly marked as generated with AI support'; 'That also received an AI-generated refusal'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'A second chat specifically asking for a human produced the same refusal'; 'also received responses explicitly labeled as AI-generated'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The poster says a second chat asking for a human billing specialist produced the same refusal, and that two email requests received refusals marked as AI-generated.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'seven-day discretionary refund policy is conditional, not an automatic entitlement'; 'I still have no explanation specific to my case and no confirmed human review'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'I also explicitly agreed that refunded subscription access would end'; 'I find this an appalling way to treat a paying customer'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The poster acknowledges that the refund policy is discretionary and conditional, says they agreed that refunded access would end, and says they still had no case-specific explanation or confirmed human review.","causal_attribution":"Poster's account."}],"effects":[{"label":"refund of an unwanted $200 renewal refused by an AI support assistant without a case-specific reason (poster's account)","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"requests for a human review closed or answered by further AI-generated refusals (poster's account)","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1wwjs10/i_requested_a_chatgpt_refund_6_minutes_after_a/","kind":"forum_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-04: full self-text and the thread's 6 comments (none by the poster), retrieved through the arctic_shift archive API by post ID. The attached screenshots were not retrieved. The poster handle is not recorded.","independence_group":"reddit-chatgpt-pro-refund-poster"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1wwjyfk/chatgpt_pro_renewal_refund_request_within_minutes/","kind":"forum_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-04: full self-text and the thread's 15 comments (none by the poster), retrieved through the arctic_shift archive API by post ID. Same poster as s1, posted about eleven minutes later and linking s1; not independent.","independence_group":"reddit-chatgpt-pro-refund-poster"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["finance","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["Whether the poster was eligible for a refund under OpenAI's discretionary policy, including any usage in the minutes after renewal.","Whether any human reviewed or set the refusals, and whether a later human review or bank chargeback recovered the $200.","Where the poster lives; the timeline is given in Tbilisi time only."],"geography":{"basis":"The poster gives their timeline in Tbilisi time (UTC+4) but does not say where they were or live; no country is recorded.","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 support system refusing a refund and blocking escalation to a human, described with attribution and without corroboration. The poster's handle is not recorded.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-04"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The poster says the Help Center refusals came from an AI assistant and that the email replies were explicitly labelled as generated with AI support; the screenshots they describe were not retrieved. Whether a human reviewed or set the refusal is not known.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with","made_decision_about"]},"name":"First-person forum account: a ChatGPT Pro subscriber says OpenAI's AI support assistant refused a refund they requested about six minutes after an unwanted $200 renewal, closed the case when they asked for escalation, and answered further chat and email requests for a human review with more AI-generated refusals","summary":"In public posts to r/ChatGPT and r/OpenAI on 3 October 2026, a person says their ChatGPT Pro subscription renewed for $200 that day after they forgot to cancel, and that they cancelled auto-renewal and requested a refund in OpenAI's Help Center about six minutes after the charge. They say the Help Center's AI assistant declined without giving a reason specific to their account, and that when they asked for escalation the chat showed that the case was closed. A second chat asking specifically for a human billing specialist produced the same refusal, they write, and two email requests, one with five redacted screenshots, received replies marked as generated with AI support. The poster acknowledges that OpenAI's seven-day refund policy is discretionary and conditional, and says the unresolved problem is that they received no case-specific explanation and no confirmed human review. OpenAI's handling is described only by the poster, and the account is uncorroborated.","incidentDate":"2026-10-03","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2026-10-03","aiSystem":"OpenAI Help Center AI support assistant (chat) and AI-generated email support replies handling a ChatGPT Pro refund request","aiProduct":"OpenAI Help Center assistant","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["financial_loss"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The poster says OpenAI's AI support assistant refused a refund of an unwanted $200 ChatGPT Pro renewal that they requested within minutes, closed the case when they asked for escalation, and that further chat and email requests for a human review produced only AI-generated refusals, leaving them without the $200, a case-specific reason or human review (first-person account, uncorroborated).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person: the poster. A commenter who says they had the same refund problem is not counted. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"unknown","platformType":"chatbot","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1wwjs10/i_requested_a_chatgpt_refund_6_minutes_after_a/","primarySourceLabel":"r/ChatGPT, 3 October 2026: \"I requested a ChatGPT refund 6 minutes after a $200 renewal. The AI rejected it and closed the case.\"","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-04T03:22:06.262385+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-04T03:22:06.262385+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["first-person","reddit","openai","chatgpt","ai-customer-support","refund","billing","no-human-review","made-decision-about","communicated-with"]}]}