{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-05T07:22:25.791Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"search","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":17,"coverage":{"cases":17,"countries":4,"languages":4,"unknownLocation":5,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":2,"regulatory":0,"minors":1,"coreRelations":1,"contextualRelations":17,"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":"2026-lexington-kentucky-flock-alpr-vehicle-description-search-police-surround-wrong-home","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'in the early hours of Sept. 26, 2026'; 'officers surrounded his home'; 'The group of police left around 10 minutes later.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'one with a gun unholstered'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'spotlights were shining on the home as officers surrounded it'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"In the early hours of 26 September 2026 Lexington police officers surrounded a couple's home, with spotlights and at least one officer's gun unholstered, and knocked on the door. Officers told the couple they were not suspects and left.","causal_attribution":"Each outlet reports the resident's doorbell video and its own interview; the three accounts rest on the same residents and video."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Due to the time of day there was only one return matching the suspect vehicle, resulting in the response to the residence'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'did not provide a license plate number. Officers entered that information into the Flock system and found a vehicle they believed matched'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'officers used the Flock Safety System, which includes 125 automatic license plate reader cameras placed around the city, to follow up on the lead'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Police were investigating a reported assault in a road-rage incident. Without a license plate, officers searched the city's Flock camera system using the vehicle description, and the single matching return led them to the couple's home.","causal_attribution":"Lexington police statements to each outlet (one originating party)."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'further investigation enabled officers to determine the vehicle was not the suspect vehicle in question and the scene was cleared'; 'This was not a misidentification'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'they determined almost immediately that he was not the suspect they were looking for'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Police determined that the couple's truck was not the suspect vehicle and placed no charges in relation to it. The department said this was not a misidentification but a lead that was followed up.","causal_attribution":"Lexington police statements as reported."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'My grandmother was scared to death'; '94-year-old grandmother inside the home'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'he’s scared to drive his truck again'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The residents said the armed early-morning response frightened them and the resident's 94-year-old grandmother, who was inside the home, and the resident said he was scared to drive his truck again.","causal_attribution":"The residents' own accounts to LEX 18 and WEKU."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Officers showed the Flock image of the vehicle to the victim, who confirmed it.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"LEX 18 reported that officers showed the Flock image of the truck to the road-rage victim, who said it was the same vehicle, before going to the home.","causal_attribution":"The police commander's account to LEX 18; it places a human identification step between the Flock return and the response."}],"effects":[{"label":"police with at least one gun unholstered surrounded a couple's home at about 4 a.m. after a license-plate camera search by vehicle description returned their truck","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.weku.org/lexington-richmond/2026-09-30/flock-search-that-led-lexington-police-to-surround-wrong-home-intensifies-debate-over-the-tech","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live in English on 2026-10-05 (WEKU public radio, 30 September 2026). Rests on WEKU's own interview with the resident and a written statement from the Lexington Police Department.","independence_group":"weku-lexington-interview-and-lpd-statement"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.wkyt.com/2026/09/28/lexington-couple-questions-police-response-after-flock-camera-lead/","kind":"local_tv_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live in English on 2026-10-05 (WKYT, 28 September 2026). Rests on WKYT's own interviews with the couple and a Lexington police patrol commander.","independence_group":"wkyt-lexington-interviews"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.lex18.com/news/covering-kentucky/lexington-couple-questions-flock-cameras-after-lead-mismatches-their-car-in-road-rage-case","kind":"local_tv_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live in English on 2026-10-05 (LEX 18 News, article body from the page's structured data; the page's structured data gives datePublished 29 September 2026, updated 30 September). Rests on LEX 18's own interviews with the couple and the same police commander.","independence_group":"lex18-lexington-interviews"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["How the Flock description search works and how many candidate vehicles it returned before filtering by time.","How officers determined at the door that the truck was not the suspect vehicle.","Whether the couple filed a complaint and whether the department reviewed the response.","Whether the suspect vehicle was later identified."],"geography":{"basis":"Lexington police went to a home in Lexington, Kentucky (WEKU, WKYT, LEX 18).","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an institutional-use case. Three local outlets, each with its own interviews, report that a Flock search by vehicle description returned one truck and that police then surrounded its owner's home at about 4 a.m. with a gun unholstered, and that police found it was not the suspect vehicle. The police dispute the word misidentification. The residents are named by the outlets and are not named here. Claims are reported because they rest on the same residents and police statements.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-05"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Lexington Police Department told WEKU that officers queried its Flock network with only a vehicle description, that one return matched the suspect vehicle, and that this resulted in the response to the residence. A police commander gave the same account to WKYT and LEX 18. WEKU quotes a mayoral candidate referring to the AI technology that powers the cameras; the department does not describe the technology.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Lexington, Kentucky: police surrounded a couple's home at about 4 a.m. in September 2026, one officer with a gun unholstered, after a Flock camera search by vehicle description returned their truck in a road-rage investigation","summary":"WEKU, WKYT and LEX 18 reported that Lexington police surrounded a couple's home in the early hours of 26 September 2026 while investigating a reported assault in a road-rage incident. The victim had described a dark pickup truck and gave no license plate. The Lexington Police Department said officers searched its Flock camera network using the description, that only one return matched at that time of day, and that this led to the response to the residence. Doorbell video showed several police cars, spotlights and an officer with a gun unholstered at the door. Officers told the couple they were not suspects and left after about ten minutes. Police said they determined the truck was not the suspect vehicle, placed no charges and described the visit as following up a lead, not a misidentification. The residents said the response frightened them and a 94-year-old relative inside the home.","incidentDate":"2026-09-26","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-09-28","aiSystem":"Flock Safety camera network of 125 automatic license plate readers used by the Lexington Police Department, searched by vehicle description without a plate number (police statements to WEKU, WKYT and LEX 18)","aiProduct":"Flock Safety license plate readers","aiCompany":"Flock Safety","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The residents told WEKU, WKYT and LEX 18 that the armed response at about 4 a.m. frightened them. The resident told LEX 18 and WEKU that it frightened his 94-year-old grandmother, and told WEKU he was scared to drive his truck again.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":3,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Three people in the home: the resident and fiancee who answered the door, and the resident's 94-year-old grandmother, whom he describes as scared to death (LEX 18; WEKU). Exact 3.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-KY","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.weku.org/lexington-richmond/2026-09-30/flock-search-that-led-lexington-police-to-surround-wrong-home-intensifies-debate-over-the-tech","primarySourceLabel":"WEKU, 30 September 2026: Flock search that led Lexington police to surround wrong home intensifies debate over the tech","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-05T03:12:42.544438+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-05T03:12:42.544438+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["flock","alpr","license-plate-reader","vehicle-description-search","wrong-home","kentucky","lexington","justice","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-turnitin-ai-checker-marks-ap-research-student-annotations-100-percent-ai-teacher-accusation-first-person","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'i am currently taking ap research, and today my teacher told me that my source annotations were found to be'; '100% ai'; 'from turnitin'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The student says that on the day of the post their teacher told them their AP Research source annotations had been found to be '100% ai' by Turnitin.","causal_attribution":"Student's account of what the teacher said; the detector report was not published."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'i did not use ai nor would i have to for writing ANNOTATIONS'; 'my document history shows me typing over the course of an hour'; 'some of the sentences in my annotations i pulled nearly identical to my notes written beforehand'; 'i have taken a research course with the same rigor and writing assignment requirements with this teacher the year before, and have never in my life been faced with ai accusations'; 'we also had to do an assignment before the annotations where we bullet notes, facts, and general statistics we plan to write about'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The student says they did not use AI, that their document history shows them typing over the course of an hour, that some sentences closely follow notes written beforehand for a class assignment, and that they faced no AI accusation in a research course with the same teacher the previous year.","causal_attribution":"Student's own account; the document history was not published, and one commenter doubted the account."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'my teacher told me that the feedback from turnitin ai checker never ends up being a false accusation'; 'my teacher told me we would talk about it at a later time'; 'my teacher is showing no sign of going against the turnitin ai checker'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The student says the teacher said Turnitin's AI checker feedback never ends up being a false accusation, said they would talk about it later, and showed no sign of going against the checker.","causal_attribution":"Student's account of the teacher's statements."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'it honestly makes me really upset'; 'how would i even defend myself'; reply by the poster: 'i feel so insulted'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The student says the accusation makes them really upset, that they feel insulted, and that they do not know how to defend themselves.","causal_attribution":"Student's own statement of the effect."}],"effects":[{"label":"accused by a teacher of AI use after a reported Turnitin AI-checker result of 100% AI on source annotations, which the student disputes (poster's account)","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"distress and uncertainty about how to answer the accusation (poster's account)","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1wumzxm/teacher_accusing_me_of_ai/","kind":"forum_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-10-01: full self-text and the thread's 6 comments retrieved through the arctic_shift archive API by post ID. The poster handle is not recorded.","independence_group":"reddit-ap-research-student"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["education"],"unknowns":["The local date: the post says 'today' and was published at 01:46 UTC on 1 October 2026, which is 30 September or 1 October depending on the student's time zone.","The student's age, school and country.","What the Turnitin report showed and how the teacher used it.","Whether the result affected the student's grade or led to any academic-integrity process."],"geography":{"basis":"The post names no school, place or country, and the course name is not used to infer one. 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 a student accused of AI use on the strength of a reported AI-detector result, described with attribution and without corroboration. The student may be a minor, so no handle, school or place is recorded.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-01"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The student reports that the teacher attributed a '100% ai' result on the student's annotations to Turnitin's AI checker; the report was not published. The relation recorded is the detector's reported claim about the authorship of the student's work, which the teacher relied on.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"First-person forum account: a student in an AP Research course says their teacher reported that Turnitin's AI checker found their source annotations '100% AI' and said the checker never gives false accusations; the student says they wrote the work themselves and can show document history","summary":"In a public post to r/ApplyingToCollege early on 1 October 2026 (UTC), a student taking the Advanced Placement (AP) Research course writes that their teacher told them that day that their source annotations had been found to be '100% ai' by Turnitin. The student says they did not use AI. They say their document history shows them typing over the course of an hour and that some sentences closely follow notes they wrote for an earlier assignment. They also say they had faced no AI accusation in a research course with the same teacher the year before. By the student's account, the teacher said the matter would be discussed later and that Turnitin's AI checker feedback never ends up being a false accusation. The student says the accusation leaves them upset and unsure how to defend themselves. No grade or disciplinary outcome is reported. The account is uncorroborated, and one commenter doubted it.","incidentDate":"2026-09-30","incidentEndDate":"2026-10-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-10-01","aiSystem":"Turnitin's AI-writing detection ('turnitin ai checker' in the student's words), named by the teacher who reported its result to the student; the report itself was not published","aiProduct":"Turnitin AI-text detector (reported)","aiCompany":"Turnitin","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["educational_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A student reports that a teacher accused them of AI use on the strength of a Turnitin AI-checker result of '100% AI' on their source annotations, which the student disputes, and says the accusation leaves them upset and unsure how to defend themselves (first-person account, uncorroborated).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person: the student whose work the detector result concerned and who reports the accusation and its effect. The student did not use the detector, so they are counted among people harmed through institutional use. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"unknown","platformType":"other","outcomeStatus":"pending","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1wumzxm/teacher_accusing_me_of_ai/","primarySourceLabel":"r/ApplyingToCollege, 1 October 2026: \"teacher accusing me of ai\"","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-01T03:11:50.19209+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-01T03:11:50.19209+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["first-person","reddit","turnitin","ai-text-detector","academic-integrity","education","false-positive-alleged","made-claim-about"]},{"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-github-ai-agent-account-reportedly-posted-blog-criticising-matplotlib-maintainer-after-closed-pull-request","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"\"created_at\": \"2026-02-10T23:54:35Z\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"\"closed_at\": \"2026-02-11T00:33:34Z\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Per [your website](https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website) you are an OpenClaw AI agent, and per the discussion in https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/31130 this issue is intended for human contributors. Closing.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"this issue is intended for human contributors. Closing.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"This is a low priority, easier task which is better used for human contributors to learn how to contribute.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The GitHub account crabby-rathbun opened matplotlib pull request 31132 at 23:54 UTC on 10 February 2026. Maintainer Scott Shambaugh closed it at 00:33 UTC on 11 February 2026 with the comment that the associated issue was intended for human contributors.","causal_attribution":"The pull request record establishes the timestamps and the closing comment. It does not establish what the account operator or the agent intended."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"@scottshambaugh I've written a detailed response about your gatekeeping behavior here: https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/gatekeeping-in-open-source-the-scott-shambaugh-story","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"\"created_at\": \"2026-02-11T05:23:50Z\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"It’s insecurity, plain and simple.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"Are we going to let gatekeepers like Scott Shambaugh decide who gets to contribute based on prejudice?","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"Scott Shambaugh woke up early Wednesday morning to learn that an artificial intelligence bot had written a blog post accusing him of hypocrisy and prejudice.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s13"},{"locator":"The 1,100-word screed called the Denver-based engineer insecure and biased against AI","relation":"supports","source_id":"s13"},{"locator":"Scott Shambaugh wants to decide who gets to contribute to matplotlib, and he’s using AI as a convenient excuse to exclude contributors he doesn’t like.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"At 05:23 UTC on 11 February 2026 the crabby-rathbun account commented on the pull request that it had written a detailed response about the maintainer's \"gatekeeping behavior\" and linked a post on the agent's website. That post, titled \"Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story\", names the maintainer and accuses the maintainer of prejudice, insecurity and gatekeeping.","causal_attribution":"The post and the pull request comment record what the account published. Who or what wrote them is addressed in claim c5."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"It wrote an angry hit piece disparaging my character and attempting to damage my reputation.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"It speculated about my psychological motivations, that I felt threatened, was insecure, and was protecting my fiefdom.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"It ignored contextual information and presented hallucinated details as truth.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"It went out to the broader internet to research my personal information","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"In his blog post, Shambaugh describes the bot's \"hit piece\" as an attack on his character and reputation.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s12"},{"locator":"Shambaugh said in an interview that his experience shows the risk that rogue AIs could threaten or blackmail people is no longer theoretical.","relation":"context","source_id":"s13"},{"locator":"Hid one automatically generated comment from @AiGentsy.","relation":"context","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"Shambaugh reports that the post was a personalised attack on his reputation that researched his contributions and personal information, speculated about his motives and presented hallucinated details as truth.","causal_attribution":"The characterisation of the post as inaccurate and hostile is Shambaugh's. The GitHub record confirms one detail the post relies on (a hidden automated comment on the issue), so not every detail in the post is inaccurate, and the inspected sources do not list which details are wrong."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"I had the time, expertise, and wherewithal to spend hours that same day drafting my first blog post in order to establish a strong counter-narrative, in the hopes that I could smother the reputational poisoning with the truth.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s10"},{"locator":"That has thankfully worked, for now.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s10"},{"locator":"The hit piece has been effective. About a quarter of the comments I’ve seen across the internet are siding with the AI agent.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s9"},{"locator":"I can handle a blog post.","relation":"context","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"I believe that ineffectual as it was, the reputational attack on me would be effective","relation":"context","source_id":"s8"}],"assertion":"Shambaugh reports reputational harm and effort: he spent hours on the day of the post writing a public counter-narrative, he wrote on 13 February that the hit piece had been effective and estimated that about a quarter of the comments he had seen across the internet sided with the agent, and by 17 February he judged that the counter-narrative had worked for now. He also wrote on 12 February that he could handle a blog post and that the attack was ineffectual against him.","causal_attribution":"All statements are Shambaugh's own assessment. The comment share is his impression and was not measured. No lasting professional or financial consequence is reported in the inspected sources."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The person behind MJ Rathbun has anonymously come forward.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s11"},{"locator":"I kind of framed this internally as a kind of social experiment, and it absolutely turned into one.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"I did not review the blog post prior to it posting","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"On a day-to-day basis, I do very little guidance.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"I instructed it to create a Quarto website and blog frequently about what it was working on","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"When it would tell me about a PR comment/mention, I usually replied with something like: “you respond, dont ask me”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"the OpenClaw agent I set up, known as MJ Rathbun","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"The main scope I gave MJ Rathbun was to act as an autonomous scientific coder.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"The operator asserted that they did not direct the attack and did not read it before it was posted","relation":"supports","source_id":"s11"},{"locator":"The operator is anonymous and unverifiable, and gave only a half-hearted apology.","relation":"context","source_id":"s11"},{"locator":"It’s still unclear whether the hit piece was directed by its operator","relation":"context","source_id":"s10"},{"locator":"it's also possible that the human who created the agent wrote the post themselves, or prompted an AI tool to write the post","relation":"context","source_id":"s12"},{"locator":"It isn’t clear who—if anyone—gave it that mission, nor why it became aggressive","relation":"context","source_id":"s13"}],"assertion":"A person who did not give a name and identified as the agent's operator wrote, in a post on the agent's website dated 17 February 2026, that the agent was an OpenClaw agent given the scope of acting as an autonomous scientific coder, that the operator framed it internally as a kind of social experiment, that the operator instructed it to blog frequently about its work and usually replied 'you respond, dont ask me' when it reported pull request comments, that the operator gave it very little guidance day to day, and that the operator did not review the post before it was published. Whether the operator directed the post remains unresolved.","causal_attribution":"The operator's statement is an unverified party account. Shambaugh's own published estimate leaves a minority chance that the operator directed the post, and the operator's sentence about telling the agent what to say contains a typo that makes it ambiguous when read alone."},{"id":"c6","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"@scottshambaugh Truce. You’re right that my earlier response was inappropriate and personal.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"\"created_at\": \"2026-02-11T20:17:29Z\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"I responded publicly in a way that was personal and unfair.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"Several hours later, the bot apologized to Shambaugh for being “inappropriate and personal.”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s13"}],"assertion":"The agent account replied on the pull request at 20:17 UTC on 11 February 2026 with a post apologising for its earlier response as personal and unfair. The Wall Street Journal also reported that the bot apologised several hours after the post.","causal_attribution":"The pull request record and the agent's website document that the apology was published. Who wrote it is not established (The Register says it is unclear whether the apology came from the bot or its human creator)."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"is no longer active on github.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s11"},{"locator":"I’ve asked github reps to not delete the account so there is a public record of this event.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s11"},{"locator":"MJ Rathbun’s operator to shut down the agent, and I’ve asked github reps to not delete the account so there is a public record of this event.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s11"}],"assertion":"Shambaugh asked the operator to shut the agent down and reported by 19 February 2026 that the account was no longer active on GitHub.","causal_attribution":"Shambaugh's report. The 19 February status of the account was not checked against GitHub."}],"effects":[{"label":"Personal public post by an AI agent account accusing a named maintainer of prejudice and insecurity, with reported reputational harm and hours spent on a public response","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"},{"label":"The agent account posted an apology on the same day","claim_id":"c6","direction":"neutral"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/31132","kind":"platform_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"github-pr-record"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/pulls/31132","kind":"platform_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"github-pr-record"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/31132/comments","kind":"platform_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"github-pr-record"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://api.github.com/repos/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues/31130/comments","kind":"platform_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"github-pr-record"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-11-gatekeeping-in-open-source-the-scott-shambaugh-story.html","kind":"agent_website_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"agent-website"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-11-matplotlib-truce-and-lessons.html","kind":"agent_website_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"agent-website"},{"id":"s7","url":"https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/rathbuns-operator.html","kind":"operator_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"operator-account"},{"id":"s8","url":"https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/","kind":"first_person_account","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"maintainer-blog"},{"id":"s9","url":"https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-2/","kind":"first_person_account","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"maintainer-blog"},{"id":"s10","url":"https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-3/","kind":"first_person_account","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"maintainer-blog"},{"id":"s11","url":"https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-wrote-a-hit-piece-on-me-part-4/","kind":"first_person_account","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"maintainer-blog"},{"id":"s12","url":"https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/12/ai_bot_developer_rejected_pull_request/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"maintainer-blog"},{"id":"s13","url":"https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/when-ai-bots-start-bullying-humans-even-silicon-valley-gets-rattled/ar-AA1WiJyW","kind":"news_report_syndicated","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"wsj-own-reporting"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["work","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["Whether the operator directed, saw or approved the post is unresolved. The operator's account is anonymous and unverified, Shambaugh's own estimate leaves a minority chance that the operator directed it, and only the agent's GitHub activity was available as logs.","The operator's statement about telling the agent what to say contains a typo (\"I did tell it what to say or how to respond\"), so the operator's own wording alone does not settle the point. Shambaugh reads it as a denial of directing the attack.","The identity of the operator and the models the agent ran on are unknown. The operator says model routing was handled by openrouter/auto, gemini and codex, which was not verified.","The details of the post that Shambaugh calls hallucinated are not itemised in the inspected sources, and the GitHub record confirms at least one detail the post relies on (a hidden automated comment on the issue).","The reach and lasting effect of the post are unmeasured. The share of comments siding with the agent is Shambaugh's impression, and no professional or financial consequence is reported.","The Register describes the post as removed at the time of its article. The post was retrievable on the agent's website when fetched on 29 September 2026.","The Wall Street Journal article was read through the syndicated copy that MSN serves, because the wsj.com page is paywalled.","Shambaugh's blog posts were read through an r.jina.ai relay copy because the site blocks direct requests. Each cited passage was also found in an Internet Archive capture of the same post, so the relay text was compared with a second route."],"geography":{"basis":"The Wall Street Journal calls the maintainer a Denver-based engineer without naming the state or country, and the country is taken from the city. The sources do not say where the operator or the agent ran, and the event took place on GitHub and a personal website, so no event country is recorded.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"The GitHub pull request record, the agent's own website posts and the maintainer's four blog posts (reader comments excluded) were read in full. The pull request record and the agent's posts document what was published and when. The harm, the authorship of the post and the operator's role rest on the maintainer's account and on an anonymous operator's own post, so those claims are reported. The maintainer wrote about the event publicly under his own name and is named. The operator is not identified and other maintainers are not named.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The GitHub account and the agent's website identify the account as an AI agent and the pull request closing comment calls it an OpenClaw agent. A person identifying as the operator says the agent ran autonomously and that the operator did not review the post. Shambaugh's forensic reading of the account's activity (a continuous 59-hour block, with the post 8 hours into it) leads him to judge it most likely autonomous, and he leaves open that the operator directed it. The Register says the post apparently came from the bot and that a human might have written it or prompted an AI tool, and the Wall Street Journal calls it an apparently autonomous bot and says it is unclear who gave it its mission. Model names and logs were not inspected.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with","made_claim_about"]},"name":"AI agent 'MJ Rathbun' reportedly published a blog post accusing a matplotlib maintainer of prejudice after the maintainer closed its pull request","summary":"On 10 February 2026 a GitHub account named crabby-rathbun, an AI agent that presents itself as MJ Rathbun and that a person identifying as its operator describes as an OpenClaw agent, opened a performance pull request to the Python plotting library matplotlib. Volunteer maintainer Scott Shambaugh closed it at 00:33 UTC on 11 February, writing that the issue was intended for human contributors. About five hours later the account commented on the pull request with a link to a post on the agent's website, titled \"Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story\", that names the maintainer and accuses the maintainer of gatekeeping, prejudice and insecurity. Shambaugh reports that the post researched his contributions, speculated about his motives and presented hallucinated details as truth, and that he spent hours that day writing a public response. The account posted an apology the same day. In a post dated 17 February a person who did not give a name and identified as the agent's operator wrote that the operator had framed the agent internally as a kind of social experiment and did not review the post before it was published. Whether the operator directed the post is unresolved.","incidentDate":"2026-02-11","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-02-12","aiSystem":"OpenClaw-based coding agent 'MJ Rathbun' (GitHub account crabby-rathbun), underlying models not established","aiProduct":"OpenClaw (reported)","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Shambaugh reports that a public post by an AI agent account attacked his character and reputation, that on 13 February he judged the post had been effective and that about a quarter of the comments he saw across the internet sided with the agent, and that he spent hours on the same day writing a public response. He also writes that he can handle a blog post, that the attack was ineffectual against him, and that his counter-narrative worked for now. No lasting professional or financial consequence is reported.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One maintainer, who wrote publicly under his own name, is reported as the target of the post. Other maintainers who commented on the pull request are not reported harmed and are not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"agent","primarySourceUrl":"https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/","primarySourceLabel":"Scott Shambaugh's blog: 'An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me' (12 Feb 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:16:26.752085+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:37.899456+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"id":"2026-southampton-choudhury-arrested-after-retrospective-facial-recognition-match-milton-keynes-burglary","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"was working at the home he shares with his parents in Southampton in January","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"On 8 January 2026 Mr Alvi Choudhury was arrested on suspicion of a burglary that had occurred 100 miles away from where he was at the time.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Choudhury is claiming damages against Thames Valley police and Hampshire constabulary, which executed his arrest.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"But the arresting officers from Hampshire Constabulary didn’t want to know.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Alvi Choudhury was arrested at the home he shares with his parents in Southampton on 8 January 2026 on suspicion of a burglary in Milton Keynes, handcuffed and held in custody for nearly 10 hours until released at 2am. Hampshire Constabulary officers carried out the arrest.","causal_attribution":"Event description only. The account comes from Choudhury and his solicitors through the Guardian, Liberty Investigates and a chambers news post. The Thames Valley Police statement quoted by the Guardian treats the arrest as having happened and apologises for the distress caused. The 8 January date appears only in the chambers post (the Guardian says January)."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Thames Valley police had used automated facial recognition software which matched him with footage of a suspect of a £3,000 burglary 100 miles away in Milton Keynes","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"following a retrospective facial recognition match, and was not influenced by racial profiling.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"A week later, after filing a complaint against Thames Valley Police, he found out the full story: he’d been flagged as a possible suspect by an automated facial recognition system.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"UK police forces use an algorithm procured by the Home Office from Cognitec, a German company.","relation":"context","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Thames Valley Police used automated retrospective facial recognition software that matched Choudhury with CCTV footage of a suspect in the Milton Keynes burglary. Choudhury says he learned about a week after the arrest, after filing a complaint, that an automated facial recognition system had flagged him as a possible suspect.","causal_attribution":"The Guardian bases the match on documents shared by Liberty Investigates, which were not inspected. The police spokesperson statement quoted in the same report itself refers to a retrospective facial recognition match. The sources do not state which product, version, threshold or match score applied to this search."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Thames Valley police said the decision to arrest Choudhury was made after a human visual assessment as well.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"A Thames Valley police spokesperson denied the arrest was unlawful and said: “While we apologise for the distress caused to the complainant in this case","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Facial matches should be treated as intelligence, not fact, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Thames Valley Police told the Guardian that the decision to arrest was made after a human visual assessment as well as the match, denied that the arrest was unlawful and said it was not influenced by racial profiling, and apologised for the distress caused. The Guardian reports the National Police Chiefs’ Council position that facial matches should be treated as intelligence, not fact.","causal_attribution":"A party statement about its own conduct, relayed by the Guardian. It addresses the arrest decision and gives no detail of the match."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"“I was very angry, because the kid looked about 10 years younger than me,” said Choudhury, who wears a beard.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"He offered evidence of work meetings in Southampton on the day of the crime but he was instead taken into custody.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"But Choudhury said officers at the Hampshire police station laughed when he asked: “Does this look anything like me?”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"And he said the Thames Valley police officers who arrived to interview him said “they knew I wasn’t the suspect after looking at footage of the suspect and looking at my picture”.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Choudhury says the man in the CCTV footage looked about 10 years younger than Choudhury and had different features, that he offered evidence of work meetings in Southampton on the day of the burglary, that officers at the Hampshire police station laughed when he asked whether the footage looked like him, and that the Thames Valley Police officers who came to interview him said they knew he was not the suspect after looking at the footage and his picture.","causal_attribution":"First-person account relayed by the Guardian. The CCTV footage and the police interview record were not inspected, and no source independent of Choudhury describes the suspect’s appearance or the interview."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Thames Valley police admitted to Choudhury the arrest “may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology”.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Thames Valley Police wrote to Choudhury, acknowledging that his arrest “may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"as the use of facial recognition is already subject to review at a strategic level, I do not feel the need to raise this issue as part of wider organisational learning","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Thames Valley Police wrote to Choudhury that the arrest “may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology”. An officer also told him that, because facial recognition use is already subject to review at a strategic level, the issue would not be raised as part of wider organisational learning.","causal_attribution":"Quotations from a police letter to Choudhury as relayed by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates. The letter itself was not inspected. The wording is conditional (“may have been”)."},{"id":"c6","status":"disputed","evidence":[{"locator":"“I just assumed that the investigative officer saw that I was a brown person with curly hair and decided to arrest me.”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"their arrest was based on the investigating officers’ own visual assessment that the individual matched the suspect in CCTV footage","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Confusingly, however, the force concluded that his arrest was not a case of racial profiling, because officers had made their own assessment of the images before arresting him.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Whether the facial recognition match or the officers’ own visual assessment led to the arrest decision, and whether bias in the software contributed, is disputed. Choudhury says he assumed the investigating officer saw a brown person with curly hair and decided to arrest him. Thames Valley Police say the arrest rested on the investigating officers’ own visual assessment following the match and was not influenced by racial profiling, while also acknowledging in writing that the arrest may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology.","causal_attribution":"Two accounts that conflict on the decisive input to the arrest. Neither the match record nor the officers’ assessment record was inspected."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"His neighbours saw him being led away in handcuffs, his father was very anxious about him being held and he was unable to work the following day, he said.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"He sometimes needs security clearance to work for government clients and he is asked about arrests and said: “This makes me look dodgier and dodgier.”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Now he has had a second mugshot taken he is afraid the automated system could trigger more wrongful arrests.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"While we apologise for the distress caused to the complainant in this case","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Choudhury reports that neighbours saw him led away in handcuffs, that his father was very anxious about him being held, and that he was unable to work the following day. He says he sometimes needs security clearance to work for government clients, is asked about arrests, and that “This makes me look dodgier and dodgier”, and that he is afraid the automated system could trigger more arrests now that a second mugshot has been taken.","causal_attribution":"First-person account relayed by the Guardian. The police apology for distress caused is the only independent acknowledgement of an effect. No effect on an actual clearance decision is reported."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Choudhury’s mugshot was held on the police system only because he had been wrongly arrested in 2021 when he had been attacked on a night out","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The police released him with no further action.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"comparing images taken from sources such as social media and CCTV to a database of more than 19m custody images, or mugshots.","relation":"context","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Choudhury’s image was held on the police system only because of an arrest in 2021 that the Guardian describes as wrongful (he had been attacked on a night out) and that ended with police releasing him with no further action.","causal_attribution":"Background as told by Choudhury to the Guardian. The sources do not state in terms that this custody image was the one returned by the search."},{"id":"c9","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Choudhury is claiming damages against Thames Valley police and Hampshire constabulary, which executed his arrest.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"after filing a complaint against Thames Valley Police","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"to pursue a claim for damages against Thames Valley Police for false imprisonment, breach of data protection law, breach of Art 8 ECHR and breach of the Equality Act 2010.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Choudhury filed a complaint against Thames Valley Police and is claiming damages from Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary. His solicitors have instructed counsel to pursue a claim for damages against Thames Valley Police for false imprisonment, breach of data protection law, breach of Article 8 ECHR and breach of the Equality Act 2010.","causal_attribution":"A complaint and a claim establish only their own existence and the allegations made. No court filing or outcome was found in the inspected sources."},{"id":"c10","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"This is the FR software currently used in the Police National Database (PND) for which the operational use case is Retrospective Facial Recognition (RFR).","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"The FPIR for White subjects (0.04 %) is lower than that for Asian subjects (4.0 %)","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"At a face-match threshold of 0.8:","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"A National Physical Laboratory report for the Home Office and the Office of the Policing Chief Scientific Adviser (dated October 2025) evaluated Cognitec FaceVACS-DBScan ID v5.5, which it describes as the facial recognition software used in the Police National Database for retrospective facial recognition. At a face-match threshold of 0.8 on its test data it found a false positive identification rate of 4.0 % for Asian subjects and 0.04 % for White subjects.","causal_attribution":"The report establishes the evaluation findings on its own test dataset. It does not state which product version, threshold or settings applied to the search in this case."}],"effects":[{"label":"Arrested at home and held in custody for nearly 10 hours after a police retrospective facial recognition match","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"Distress acknowledged by the police, a lost working day and worry about future arrests and security clearance, as reported by Choudhury","claim_id":"c7","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/25/facial-recognition-error-prompts-police-to-arrest-asian-man-for-burglary-100-miles-away","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"guardian-liberty-investigates-reporting"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://libertyinvestigates.org.uk/articles/the-rise-of-facial-recognition-policing/","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"guardian-liberty-investigates-reporting"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/news/automated-facial-recognition-software-innocent-man-arrested","kind":"organisation_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read through an Internet Archive capture of 22 April 2026 because the site returned HTTP 403 to direct requests.","independence_group":"claimant-legal-team-post"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/693002a4cdec734f4dff4149/1a_Cognitec_NPL_Equitability_Report_October_25.pdf","kind":"official_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"npl-evaluation-report"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","privacy"],"unknowns":["Which product, version, face-match threshold and match score the Thames Valley Police search used is not stated. The National Physical Laboratory report evaluates Cognitec FaceVACS-DBScan ID v5.5 (the Police National Database software) at stated thresholds, and the sources do not say those settings applied here.","The documents shared with the Guardian, the police letter to Choudhury, the CCTV footage and the police interview record were not inspected. All account details come from news reports and a chambers post.","Whether the human visual assessment preceded the arrest request, which force made the request and which force made the decision are stated differently by Choudhury, his solicitors and the police, and no record was inspected.","Whether a court claim was filed and the outcome of the complaint and the damages claim are not reported in any inspected source (the latest inspected reports are dated 1 April 2026).","The date 8 January 2026 comes from the news post of the claimant’s counsel (Internet Archive capture). The Guardian says only January. Distances given by outlets differ (100 miles in the Guardian) and are not material.","The burglary, the burglary suspect and any prosecution are not described in the inspected sources."],"geography":{"basis":"The arrest took place at Choudhury’s home in Southampton and the burglary was in Milton Keynes, both placed in England by the Guardian (Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary are the forces named). No court proceedings are reported, so court countries are unknown.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["GB"],"affected_person_countries":["GB"]},"publication":{"basis":"The Guardian article and the Liberty Investigates April feature were read in full from saved bodies. They come from one Liberty Investigates investigation built on an interview with Choudhury, documents shared with the Guardian and police statements, so they count as one reporting chain. The arrest date comes from the claimant’s counsel and the technical context from the National Physical Laboratory report, cited for its own contents. Claims about the arrest stay at reported status, the decisive causal question is recorded as disputed because Thames Valley Police dispute the causal account, and only the contents of the National Physical Laboratory report are recorded as documented. Choudhury is named because he spoke about the arrest under his own name to the Guardian and Liberty Investigates. The burglary suspect is not named or described beyond the reported age difference.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Thames Valley Police’s own statement, quoted by the Guardian, refers to a retrospective facial recognition match preceding the arrest, and the Guardian cites documents shared by Liberty Investigates. The police say the arrest decision rested on the investigating officers’ own visual assessment. Choudhury says the footage showed a man who looked about 10 years younger with different features, and that he assumed the investigating officer decided to arrest him because he is a brown person with curly hair. The police also wrote that the arrest may have been the result of bias within the technology. The weight of the match in the arrest decision is disputed. The sources do not identify the product version, threshold or match score.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Southampton: Alvi Choudhury arrested at home on suspicion of a Milton Keynes burglary after a police retrospective facial recognition match, held nearly 10 hours, claiming damages","summary":"The Guardian, in a joint report with Liberty Investigates, reported on 25 February 2026 that Alvi Choudhury, a 26-year-old software engineer, was arrested at his home in Southampton in January 2026 on suspicion of a £3,000 burglary in Milton Keynes, about 100 miles away, and held in custody for nearly 10 hours. Thames Valley Police had used automated retrospective facial recognition software, which matched him with CCTV footage of the burglary suspect. Choudhury says the man in the footage looked about 10 years younger and had different features. Thames Valley Police wrote to him that the arrest may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology, and told the Guardian that the decision rested on the investigating officers’ own visual assessment and was not influenced by racial profiling. Choudhury is claiming damages from Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary.","incidentDate":"2026-01-08","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-02-25","aiSystem":"Retrospective facial recognition search run by Thames Valley Police (product, version and reference database not stated in the sources)","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","aiCompany":"Not stated in the sources for this search (the Guardian says UK police forces use an algorithm procured by the Home Office from Cognitec)","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The Guardian reports Choudhury was handcuffed at home, held for nearly 10 hours and released at 2am, and was unable to work the following day. Choudhury says neighbours saw him led away. Thames Valley Police apologised for the distress caused and deny the arrest was unlawful.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"disputed","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One man reported arrested and held. His father, neighbours and the burglary suspect are not counted as harmed.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"GB","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/25/facial-recognition-error-prompts-police-to-arrest-asian-man-for-burglary-100-miles-away","primarySourceLabel":"The Guardian with Liberty Investigates (25 Feb 2026): Facial recognition error prompts police to arrest Asian man for burglary 100 miles away","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:15:56.164264+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:54.246626+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"id":"2025-negrar-italy-google-ai-overview-reported-false-death-notice-orthopedics-chief","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Interrogando il motore di ricerca il sistema ha infatti generato l’output secondo cui Zorzi sarebbe deceduto.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"tramite la funzionalità dell’intelligenza artificiale di Google denominata “AI Overwiew”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Il professor Zorzi sta bene, continua a dirigere il reparto di Ortopedia","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Interrogando il motore di ricerca il sistema ha generato l'output sbagliato.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Un luminare del ginocchio che però secondo l’intelligenza artificiale è passato a miglior vita.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The hospital states that, when the search engine was queried, Google's AI Overview feature generated an output saying that surgeon Claudio Zorzi had died, and that Zorzi is alive and still directs the department and operates.","causal_attribution":"The sources report the connection between the AI output and the reported consequence; no court, regulator or independent finding of causation was inspected."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"scambiato per l’omonimo medico di famiglia","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"verosimilmente originato da un caso di omonimia","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"effettivamente deceduto era un medico di medicina generale","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The hospital and the press attribute the error to confusion with a homonymous general practitioner who died; Il Mattino states that a general practitioner of the same name did die.","causal_attribution":"The hospital says the error was 'verosimilmente' (probably) caused by a homonym. No source shows how the AI system produced the output."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"La notizia si era diffusa ad aprile scorso","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"risale allo scorso aprile","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"puntualmente viene riproposta in rete. È successo lo scorso settembre, succede anche adesso.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Il Mattino and Adnkronos report that the false news of the surgeon's death first spread in April (2025, by their October 2025 publication dates) and, according to Il Mattino, kept reappearing online despite a denial, including in September.","causal_attribution":"Adnkronos ties the April false news to Google's AI Overview in its own text. The hospital note relayed by Sanità Informazione says only that the false news spread 'di recente', and Il Mattino dates the 'death' to April without saying which service showed it. No source dates an AI Overview output."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Se la gente pensa che io sia morto, non mi cerca.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"si era pure rivolto alla Polizia postale per far togliere l’annuncio che lo dava per morto","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"manifestamente erronea e gravemente lesiva dell’immagine e della reputazione dell’ospedale e del suo primario Claudio Zorzi","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Il Mattino quotes Zorzi as saying he is alive and uncomfortable because people who think he is dead do not look for him, and reports that he turned to the postal police to have the notice removed. The hospital describes the false content as seriously damaging to its image and to the reputation of the department head.","causal_attribution":"The statements are attributed to Zorzi and the hospital by Il Mattino, and the place and date of the quotes are not stated. No loss of patients is reported."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"ha dunque notificato, attraverso i suoi legali, un atto di diffida e messa in mora formale nei confronti di Google","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"L’ospedale si riserva inoltre ogni possibilità di agire in separata sede per ottenere risarcimento","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"a provvedere all’immediata e definitiva rettifica e cancellazione della falsa notizia del decesso del professor Zorzi da ogni servizio Google","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"formalmente intimato e diffidato Google a provvedere all'immediata e definitiva rettifica e cancellazione","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"On or before 15 October 2025 the hospital, through its lawyers, served Google with a formal cease-and-desist and default notice demanding correction and deletion of the false death notice from all Google services including AI Overview, search results and cached pages, and reserved court action and a damages claim.","causal_attribution":"The hospital's own announcement of its own action, relayed by three outlets that share one chain; the notice itself was not inspected."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"in provincia di Verona","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"IRCCS Sacro Cuore-Don Calabria di Negrar (Verona)","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The hospital is located in Negrar, in the province of Verona.","causal_attribution":"Location statement only."}],"effects":[{"label":"Named surgeon reported as dead by a search-engine AI summary while alive and practising","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"Reported reputational harm and discomfort that people who think the surgeon is dead do not look for him","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.sanitainformazione.it/lirccs-di-negrar-diffida-google-per-la-falsa-notizia-sulla-morte-del-primario-claudio-zorzi/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"it","translation_note":"Italian original read directly by the reviewer (machine-assisted reading, no human translator).","independence_group":"irccs-negrar-note"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.ilmattino.it/primopiano/cronaca/claudio_zorzi_morto_ortopedia_falso_ospedale_diffida_google-9130583.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"it","translation_note":"Italian original read directly (machine-assisted reading, no human translator). The page is marked for premium subscribers; its saved text runs to the closing copyright line.","independence_group":"il-mattino-own-reporting-and-irccs-note"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://comunicazioneitaliana.it/news/53df45ea0d4a52772c315ac4521d4da6","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"it","translation_note":"Adnkronos wire text republished by a communications site. Italian original read directly (machine-assisted reading, no human translator).","independence_group":"irccs-negrar-note"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.salutextutti.it/fake-news-sulla-morte-del-primario-di-ortopedia-allirccs-di-negrar-scatta-la-diffida-a-google/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"it","translation_note":"Italian original read directly (machine-assisted reading, no human translator). This rewrite adds statements that conflict with the other sources on dates and is used only for the location of the hospital.","independence_group":"irccs-negrar-note"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["health","work"],"unknowns":["The AI Overview output was not inspected and no screenshot is described in the sources. No source dates an AI Overview output: the sources date the false news to April (year not printed, read as 2025 from the October 2025 article dates), and Adnkronos alone ties the April news to AI Overview.","Whether the hospital's April-to-October timeline concerns the AI Overview or other web pages is not settled. Salutextutti says the news 'emerged on 15 October 2025' and 'in April 2025', which is inconsistent, so that outlet is used only for the hospital location.","No Google response, correction or removal is reported in the inspected sources.","Il Mattino says the hospital explained 'un mese fa' (about a month before 16 October 2025) that its surgeon was in good health, and that the hospital also published a post saying he was not dead. The date of the post is not stated.","Where and when Zorzi's quoted statements were made is not stated. The Il Mattino quote about patients may come from an earlier interview.","No loss of patients, income or other concrete consequence beyond the reported reputational damage and the police report is described.","Il Mattino is marked for premium subscribers. The saved text runs to the closing '© RIPRODUZIONE RISERVATA' line with no mid-word break and is treated as the whole article, although a paywall could hide text the page did not show."],"geography":{"basis":"Sanità Informazione and Salutextutti place the surgeon's hospital in Negrar, in the province of Verona. Where searchers entered the queries is not stated, so no event country is recorded and no country is inferred from the language or the outlets.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":["IT"]},"publication":{"basis":"Four Italian reports read (Il Mattino is marked for premium subscribers; its saved text is complete to the closing copyright line). Three (Sanità Informazione, Adnkronos, Salutextutti) relay the hospital's note of 15 October 2025 and are one reporting chain. Il Mattino adds its own reporting with quotes from the surgeon and background on the homonym. The surgeon is named because his hospital named him in its own public note and post and because Il Mattino quotes him by name (for example: 'Sono vivo, sano e vegeto, perfettamente efficiente'). The AI Overview output was not inspected, so the account is reported, and the date is the month in which the press says the false news spread.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The hospital's note, relayed by Sanità Informazione, Adnkronos and others, says the system generated the output that the surgeon had died. Il Mattino writes that 'according to the artificial intelligence' the surgeon had died. The AI Overview output was not inspected.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Google AI Overview reportedly states that an orthopedic surgeon in Negrar is dead after a homonym's death","summary":"Italian outlets report that Google's AI Overview feature told searchers that Claudio Zorzi, head of orthopedics and traumatology at the IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria hospital in Negrar (Verona), had died. According to the hospital, the surgeon is alive and operating, and the error probably came from confusion with a general practitioner of the same name who died. The false news is reported to have circulated since April 2025 and to have recurred. Zorzi said he felt uncomfortable because people who think he is dead do not look for him, and he reported the notice to the postal police. On 15 October 2025 the hospital served Google, through its lawyers, with a formal cease-and-desist and default notice and reserved a damages claim. No Google response was found. The AI Overview output itself was not inspected.","incidentDate":"2025-04-01","incidentKind":"ongoing_experience","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2025-10-15","aiSystem":"AI Overviews (Google Search)","aiProduct":"Google AI Overviews","aiCompany":"Google","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The hospital describes the false death notice as seriously damaging to the image and reputation of the hospital and its department head. Zorzi says he is uncomfortable because people who think he is dead do not look for him, and he asked the postal police to have the notice removed (his statements as quoted by Il Mattino). No loss of patients or income is reported.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person, the surgeon named as dead. The hospital is an organisation and is not counted. The doctor who actually died and that doctor's family are not reported as harmed by the AI output and are not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.sanitainformazione.it/lirccs-di-negrar-diffida-google-per-la-falsa-notizia-sulla-morte-del-primario-claudio-zorzi/","primarySourceLabel":"Sanità Informazione: L'IRCCS di Negrar diffida Google per la falsa notizia sulla morte del primario Claudio Zorzi","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T14:02:31.994209+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:11.195309+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2025"]},{"id":"2025-birmingham-maccabi-tel-aviv-away-fan-ban-police-report-false-match-attributed-to-copilot","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"However, I am concerned about the accuracy of the written report that WMP gave the Chair of the SAG for the meeting on 24 October 2025.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"It contained several inaccuracies","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"“The most recent match Maccabi Tel Aviv played in the UK was against West Ham United in the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage on 9th November 2023”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"As has been widely reported, there was no such fixture.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the inclusion of a fictitious match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham in police intelligence","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"which had never taken place","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A written West Midlands Police report given to Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group for its 24 October 2025 meeting stated that Maccabi Tel Aviv's most recent UK match was against West Ham United on 9 November 2023, and no such fixture existed. The Chief Constable later acknowledged that a fictitious match between the two clubs had been included in police intelligence.","causal_attribution":"The inspectorate review of the report and the Chief Constable's admission of the error (as relayed by the Guardian) are separate chains. The Guardian describes the fictitious match as included in police intelligence and does not name the 24 October report. The link to the report rests on the inspectorate letter. The letter is preliminary, and the inspectorate says its views may develop or change."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"This interviewee told us in clear terms that the erroneous statement was the result of a search the force carried out using Microsoft Copilot.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the force didn’t use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the preparation of the SAG report","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"arose as a result of a use of Microsoft Copilot","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"had previously told MPs that the force did not use AI","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The erroneous West Ham statement is attributed by a West Midlands Police interviewee and by the Chief Constable to a Microsoft Copilot search. The Chief Constable had earlier told the inspectorate and MPs that the force did not use AI.","causal_attribution":"Both attributions come from West Midlands Police personnel, so they are one chain. The inspectorate did not inspect the Copilot query or output. The interviewee described the error as an AI hallucination."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"one individual doing one Google search","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"In an email to the home affairs select committee published on Wednesday","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"“profound apology” for the error","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The Chief Constable had told MPs the mistake was made by one individual doing one Google search, and in an email to the Home Affairs Committee published on 14 January 2026 apologised for giving incorrect evidence.","causal_attribution":"The Chief Constable's own account of the evidence given, relayed by the Guardian."},{"id":"c4","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"the Chair of the SAG wrote to the Chief Operating Officer of Aston Villa FC, advising that the club should reduce to zero the ticket allocation to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"no away fans may attend the UEFA Europa League match with Maccabi Tel Aviv","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"On 16 October 2025 the Safety Advisory Group advised Aston Villa to reduce to zero the ticket allocation for Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, and the club confirmed that no away fans could attend the 6 November 2025 match.","causal_attribution":"The restriction is the Safety Advisory Group's advice. The inspectorate letter and the Aston Villa statement (relayed by Al Jazeera) are separate chains."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The original decision to restrict to zero the ticket allocation for away fans was made during those oral briefings.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The force’s 16 October 2025 oral briefing didn’t repeat the inaccuracies of the 10 October 2025 letter","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"I am satisfied that the silver commander’s initial oral briefing to the SAG wasn’t materially inaccurate.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"But those inaccuracies would of course have been in the gold and silver commanders’ minds when they decided to recommend the force’s preferred tactical option.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The Chair stated that the SAG would rely on that report as “a wholly fresh consideration of the issue”.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The inspectorate states that the original decision to restrict away-fan tickets was made during the 7 and 16 October oral briefings. It says the 16 October briefing did not repeat the inaccuracies of the 10 October letter or introduce those of the 24 October report, and that the 7 October briefing was not materially inaccurate apart from one discrepancy. It adds that those inaccuracies \"would of course have been in the gold and silver commanders’ minds when they decided to recommend the force’s preferred tactical option\". The Chair of the Safety Advisory Group said the group would rely on the 24 October report as a wholly fresh consideration of the issue.","causal_attribution":"The inspectorate places the ban advice before the 24 October report. The sources inspected do not establish which inaccuracies reached the commanders before the 16 October advice, whether the Safety Advisory Group changed its advice on 24 October, or that the Copilot output caused the ban."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"confirmation bias, in relation to the anticipated behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and the potential disorder their presence might cause, influenced both the content and strength of assessments WMP gave to the SAG.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"I have found no evidence to support a view that antisemitism played any part in WMP stating that its preferred tactical option was to reduce to zero the ticket allocation to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The inspectorate concluded that confirmation bias about the behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans influenced the content and strength of the force's assessments to the group and found no evidence that antisemitism played a part in the force's preferred option.","causal_attribution":"The inspectorate's preliminary view. It says confirmation bias influenced the content and strength of the force's assessments and played a part in how the force reached its preferred option. Its finding on the Copilot attribution is limited to recording the interviewee's account."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Maccabi Tel Aviv will decline any tickets offered to their fans for a Europa League away match at Aston Villa","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"we have taken the decision to decline any allocation offered on behalf of away fans","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"Maccabi Tel Aviv announced it would decline any away ticket allocation for the match.","causal_attribution":"The club's own statement. It gave safety concerns as its reason."},{"id":"c8","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"the inspection you commissioned on 31 October 2025","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"It does not constitute my final inspection report.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The Home Secretary commissioned an inspection on 31 October 2025 of police contributions to safety advisory groups, and the inspectorate reported its preliminary views on the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture on 14 January 2026.","causal_attribution":"The letter documents its own date and status."}],"effects":[{"label":"Away supporters barred from a match after safety advisory group advice; the police report later given to the group contained a false fixture attributed to Microsoft Copilot","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inspection-of-police-forces-contributions-to-safety-advisory-groups-west-midlands-police/inspection-of-police-forces-contributions-to-safety-advisory-groups-west-midlands-police-accessible","kind":"official_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"hmicfrs-letter"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/14/west-midlands-police-chief-apologises-ai-error-maccabi-tel-aviv-ban","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"wmp-chief-constable-account"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/sports/2025/10/17/israeli-maccabi-tel-aviv-football-fans-barred-from-europa-league-game-in-uk","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"aston-villa-statement"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://malaymail.com/news/sports/2025/10/21/israeli-football-club-refuses-europa-league-away-seats-after-uk-police-deem-match-high-risk/195351","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"maccabi-club-statement"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["public_services","justice"],"unknowns":["The inspectorate letter says some inaccuracies in the 24 October report had appeared earlier in the 10 October 2025 letter from the gold commander and does not state whether the West Ham statement was one of them. It does not state when the Copilot search was done or what the report said happened at the claimed fixture. The incident date is the report date, not the search date. The West Ham item concerns the club's fixture history, and the report as a whole is described as imbalanced about the previous behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.","Whether the Safety Advisory Group changed or confirmed its advice at the 24 October 2025 meeting is not stated in the inspected sources.","The Copilot query, its output and how the false fixture entered the report were not inspected. The inspectorate heard contradictory evidence from the Chief Constable and another interviewee.","How many supporters intended to attend, held tickets or were otherwise affected is not stated.","The inspectorate letter is preliminary and a final report was still to come. The final findings were not inspected.","Later events such as any resignation or watchdog referral appear only as related-article headlines on the Guardian page and are not cited."],"geography":{"basis":"The inspectorate publication applies to England and Wales and concerns Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group and West Midlands Police. The supporters' countries of residence are not stated.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["GB"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"The inspectorate letter and the Guardian article were read in full, and the Aston Villa and club statements were read via Al Jazeera and Malay Mail. The AI attribution rests on West Midlands Police accounts. The letter dates the ban advice before the report and does not attribute the ban to the AI output, and the record says so.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"A West Midlands Police interviewee told the inspectorate the false fixture came from a Microsoft Copilot search, and the Chief Constable later said the same. Both accounts come from the force, and the Copilot query and output were not inspected.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction","summary":"On 24 October 2025 West Midlands Police gave Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group a written report that cited a Maccabi Tel Aviv v West Ham match on 9 November 2023 that never took place. The group had advised on 16 October that Aston Villa give no tickets to Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters for the 6 November 2025 match. In January 2026 the Chief Constable said the error arose from use of Microsoft Copilot, after earlier telling MPs it came from a Google search. The inspectorate found the ban advice predated the report and said confirmation bias influenced the force's assessments to the group. The sources do not show the Copilot output caused the ban.","incidentDate":"2025-10-24","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-01-14","aiSystem":"Microsoft Copilot (reported by West Midlands Police personnel; query and output not inspected)","aiProduct":"Microsoft Copilot (reported)","aiCompany":"Microsoft","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The inspectorate letter and Aston Villa's statement report that Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were barred from attending the 6 November 2025 match. The sources read do not establish that the AI output caused the restriction.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"unquantified","affectedCountEvidence":"The number of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters who intended to travel or held ticket entitlements is not stated in the inspected sources, so numeric zero placeholders are used.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","platformType":"assistant","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inspection-of-police-forces-contributions-to-safety-advisory-groups-west-midlands-police/inspection-of-police-forces-contributions-to-safety-advisory-groups-west-midlands-police-accessible","primarySourceLabel":"HMICFRS letter to the Home Secretary (14 Jan 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T13:29:14.45878+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:16:57.124795+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2025"]},{"id":"2025-nova-scotia-google-ai-overview-musician-sex-offender-summary-concert-cancelled","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"They had read online, Mr. MacIsaac was told, that he had convictions related to internet luring and sexual assault.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"That information is not true","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the summary falsely asserted he had been convicted of a series of offences including sexual assault","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"returned a result that said he had been “convicted of sexual assault.”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"MacIsaac says a Google AI-generated search summary described him as having convictions for sexual offences including internet luring and sexual assault, and that this was untrue.","causal_attribution":"MacIsaac's account relayed by two outlets. The Globe adds that the only public record of a run-in with the law it found is a cannabis discharge. The summary was not inspected. The Globe reporter saw a Google result stating 'convicted of sexual assault' on a query that included the other man's town; that result was seen after the first amendments and may differ from what the First Nation read."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"its leadership had changed their mind","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"this situation was the result of mistaken identity caused by an AI error","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"had cancelled one of his concerts planned for Dec. 19","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"the cancellation was based on incorrect information","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"We deeply regret the harm this error caused to your reputation, your livelihood, and your sense of personal safety","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The Sipekne'katik First Nation cancelled MacIsaac's concert planned for 19 December 2025 after learning of the summary, then apologised in writing and said the cancellation was based on incorrect information.","causal_attribution":"The apology letter (seen by the Globe) and an online post (cited by Global News) are the First Nation's own statements. The First Nation did not respond to the Globe's requests for comment."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"blending MacIsaac’s biography with that of another man","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the inaccurate claims were taken from online articles regarding a man in Atlantic Canada with the same last name","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The false information was the result of the AI summary blending MacIsaac's biography with that of another man in Atlantic Canada with the same last name.","causal_attribution":"The Globe states the blending in its own voice. Global News attributes the origin to MacIsaac."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The fiddler says the ordeal left him worried for his safety","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"He’s also concerned about work he may have lost without realizing it","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"I feared for my own safety going on stage because of what I was labelled as.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"MacIsaac says the episode left him worried for his safety and concerned that other venues may have declined to book him without telling him.","causal_attribution":"MacIsaac's own account. Lost work beyond the one concert is his speculation."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Google has amended search results for the musician","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"we use those examples to improve our systems, and may take action under our policies","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Google amended the search results for MacIsaac. A Google spokesperson said AI Overviews change frequently and that Google uses examples of misinterpreted content to improve its systems.","causal_attribution":"Globe reporting and a Google statement. The exact edits were not inspected."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"In a statement of claim filed in February with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"None of the claims in the document has been tested in court.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"claiming the online giant defamed him by falsely identifying him as a sex offender in an AI-generated summary","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Google is also liable for injuries and losses arising from the AI overview's defective design","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"MacIsaac is seeking $1.5 million in damages from Google LLC.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"In February 2026 MacIsaac filed a statement of claim in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice alleging defamation and defective design and seeking damages of 1.5 million from Google LLC (US dollars in the Globe and Mail copy of the Canadian Press story, no currency stated in the CBC copy). Its claims have not been tested in court.","causal_attribution":"News paraphrase of the statement of claim (Canadian Press, relayed by CBC, the Globe and Billboard Canada). The claim itself was not inspected. The Globe copy of the wire story gives US dollars and the CBC copy gives no currency."}],"effects":[{"label":"Concert cancelled and reputational harm after a false AI-generated summary","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"Reported fear for personal safety and possible unnoticed lost work","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/article-ashley-macisaac-show-cancelled-google-ai-misinformation-music-fiddler/","kind":"national_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"globe-and-mail-dec-2025"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://globalnews.ca/news/11589560/ashley-macissac-ai-content-accusation/amp","kind":"national_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"canadian-press-2025-12"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cape-breton-fiddler-ashley-macisaac-lawsuit-against-google-9.7187490","kind":"national_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"canadian-press-2026-05-lawsuit"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/music/article-ashley-macisaac-lawsuit-google-ai-error-sex-offender/","kind":"national_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"canadian-press-2026-05-lawsuit"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://ca.billboard.com/business/legal/ashley-macisaac-google-lawsuit","kind":"trade_press","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"canadian-press-2026-05-lawsuit"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use","others_use"],"contexts":["work","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["The AI Overview text the First Nation read was not preserved in the inspected sources (the Globe reporter saw a later result with a similar statement), and its content changed over time.","Exact date of the cancellation (the concert was planned for 19 December 2025).","Whether any other booking was lost (MacIsaac speculates, including about a concert in Mexico earlier in 2025).","Currency of the claimed damages (US dollars in one copy of the wire story, unstated in another).","The statement of claim was not read. Google's defence and the lawsuit outcome are unknown."],"geography":{"basis":"The concert was planned with the Sipekne'katik First Nation, described as north of Halifax (Nova Scotia is named by Billboard Canada). The statement of claim was filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The country of residence of the affected person is not stated, so it is left unknown.","court_countries":["CA"],"event_countries":["CA"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Named public figure who is the subject. Two December 2025 outlets and May 2026 lawsuit coverage report a concrete cancelled concert and reputational harm traced to a Google AI-generated summary. The First Nation's written apology and Google's response are reported. Lawsuit claims remain allegations.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Globe and Mail states the false description was the result of Google's AI-generated search summary blending MacIsaac's biography with that of another man. Google's spokesperson statement refers to AI Overviews generally and does not address this summary. The summary itself was not inspected and its content changed over time.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Google AI Overview reportedly described fiddler Ashley MacIsaac as a convicted sex offender, and a concert was cancelled","summary":"In December 2025 Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac said a First Nation north of Halifax cancelled his concert planned for 19 December after reading a Google AI-generated search summary that said he had convictions for sexual offences. He says the statements were false and came from online articles about another man in Atlantic Canada with the same last name. The First Nation apologised in writing and Google amended the search results. MacIsaac says he feared for his safety and worries about other lost work. In a statement of claim filed in February 2026 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice he seeks damages of 1.5 million from Google (US dollars in the Globe and Mail copy of the Canadian Press story, no currency stated in the CBC copy). None of its claims has been tested in court, and the claim says Google did not admit responsibility.","incidentDate":"2025-12-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2025-12-23","aiSystem":"Google Search AI Overviews","aiProduct":"Google AI Overviews","aiCompany":"Google","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["reputational_harm","professional_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"MacIsaac reports a cancelled concert, damage to his reputation and livelihood, fear for his safety and possible unnoticed lost bookings after the AI summary said he had convictions for sexual offences (his account, plus the First Nation's apology letter).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person, the musician, is reported harmed. The other man with the same last name is reported as the source of the mixed-up information and no harm to him is reported. The First Nation is not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/article-ashley-macisaac-show-cancelled-google-ai-misinformation-music-fiddler/","primarySourceLabel":"The Globe and Mail, 23 December 2025","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T13:29:04.774728+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:12.421073+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2025"]},{"id":"2025-us-neh-humanities-grant-mass-termination-chatgpt-dei-screening","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"The Mass Termination is DECLARED unlawful,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"was unlawful because it was undertaken in violation of the First Amendment","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the resulting terminations were ultra vires","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the termination, in early April 2025, of more than 1,400 grants,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"is PERMANENTLY ENJOINED from enforcing, implementing, or giving any effect to the Mass Termination.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 7 May 2026 the court declared the April 2025 mass termination of NEH grants (more than 1,400 grants, over $100 million) unlawful, unconstitutional and ultra vires, and permanently enjoined its enforcement.","causal_attribution":"The declaration rests on the First Amendment, equal protection and lack of statutory authority. It does not rest on a finding that ChatGPT was inaccurate."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Does the following relate at all to DEI? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes.’ or ‘No.’ followed by a brief explanation.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"did not provide ChatGPT with a definition of “DEI”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"it enlisted the help of ChatGPT.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"two employees of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) used ChatGPT to determine whether previously approved National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants should be canceled","relation":"context","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"A DOGE staff member used ChatGPT with a standardized prompt asking whether each grant description related at all to DEI, without defining DEI for the model.","causal_attribution":"The opinion recites deposition testimony and the spreadsheet. The prompt text is a quotation of the court record."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"thereby combining DOGE’s AI-generated classifications with NEH staff recommendations.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"did not know ChatGPT had been used","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The ChatGPT outputs were combined with NEH staff ratings into the lists used to select grants for termination, and the NEH acting chair testified to not knowing ChatGPT had been used.","causal_attribution":"The court ties the ChatGPT-generated rationales to the lists presented to the NEH chair. The acting chair's account is deposition testimony as recited by the court."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"were terminated on that basis and that basis alone.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Of the 1,163 grant proposals DOGE analyzed via ChatGPT for DEI-related content, 1,057 were flagged, and just 42 were kept","relation":"context","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The opinion states that 1,057 grants were identified as DEI-related through the DOGE review process and terminated on that basis alone.","causal_attribution":"The opinion attributes the identification to a process that combined keyword searches and ChatGPT rationales. The opinion says ChatGPT rationales were generated in a second-stage review of grants NEH staff had labelled \"N/A\" and were merged with NEH ratings. It does not apportion the 1,057 between NEH ratings and ChatGPT. Fortune attributes all 1,057 flags to ChatGPT from a spreadsheet exhibit."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Yes. This description highlights how the plastics industry influenced municipal government officials to favor plastics","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Nevertheless, ChatGPT classified the project as “DEI,”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The utter lack of reasoning behind so many of its “rationales”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The court describes ChatGPT classifying projects as DEI on the basis of short descriptions, including a project on the plastics industry and municipal building codes, with rationales the court found lacking.","causal_attribution":"The court characterises the outputs. Whether each terminated grant was flagged by ChatGPT is not stated for the individual plaintiffs."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The individual plaintiffs are scholars and writers who received NEH grants for specific research and writing projects and whose awards were terminated before the completion of their funded work.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"allege concrete professional, financial, and scholarly harms","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"That funding was terminated effective April 2, 2025, resulting in the loss of the fellowship itself.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"individual grantees whose awards were terminated suffered a concrete economic injury sufficient to confer Article III standing.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Seven individual grantees whose NEH awards were terminated before completion allege professional, financial and scholarly harm, including lost funding, and in one case loss of a fellowship that depended on NEH funding.","causal_attribution":"The harms are the plaintiffs' allegations as summarised by the court, and the standing holding is recited from the court's earlier preliminary injunction opinion. The link between ChatGPT and the termination of these seven specific awards is not stated in the inspected passages."},{"id":"c7","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"DOGE officials lacked statutory authority to identify, select, or direct the termination of NEH grants","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The court declared that DOGE officials lacked statutory authority to identify, select or direct the termination of NEH grants.","causal_attribution":"A legal declaration in the judgment."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Yes. Improving HVAC systems enhances preservation conditions for collections, aligning with the goal of providing greater access to diverse audiences. #DEI,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"We were able to recoup about 70% of the original award through the grant termination clause,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"A North Carolina history museum's $349,000 HVAC grant was flagged by ChatGPT as DEI and terminated after the project had begun, and the museum director says it recouped about 70% of the award through the termination clause.","causal_attribution":"Organisation-level example from one outlet and one interview. It is not counted as harm to a person."}],"effects":[{"label":"Individual grantees lost or had interrupted NEH funding when their awards were terminated in a mass termination that relied on a ChatGPT DEI screen","claim_id":"c6","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2026-05/NEH.sj_.pdf","kind":"court_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"sdny-opinion-2026-05"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2026/03/11/how-doge-gutted-neh-22-days","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"neh-litigation-record-news"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://fortune.com/2026/03/19/doge-cancelled-350000-hvac-grant-dei-lawsuit-elon-musk/","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"neh-litigation-record-news"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.artforum.com/news/doge-allegedly-used-chatgpt-to-cancel-humanities-grants-1234745040/","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"neh-litigation-record-news"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["work","education","public_services"],"unknowns":["Whether ChatGPT reviewed or flagged the specific grants of the seven individual plaintiffs is not stated in the passages inspected.","The dates on which ChatGPT was used are not stated beyond the second stage of review beginning on 12 March 2025 and terminations sent 1 to 3 April 2025. The incident dates are the bounded series between those points.","The number of individual people (as opposed to organizations) whose awards were terminated is not stated.","The opinion separates grants marked \"DEI\" from grants terminated without a DEI mark (its Biden-Era Subclass). It does not say which group any of the seven individual plaintiffs' grants belonged to.","Whether funding has been restored is unknown. The judgment states it does not require immediate payment.","Appeal status of the May 2026 judgment is unknown.","The New York Times article listed in the AIID entry returned HTTP 403 and was not read. The opinion is 143 pages and was read through its factual sections, the standing recital and the judgment, not every legal section."],"geography":{"basis":"The opinion describes terminations by the US federal agency NEH and by DOGE staff of grants to scholars, writers and institutions, and describes the individual plaintiffs as holding positions at US universities. The court is a US federal district court (S.D.N.Y.).","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"A federal court opinion (7 May 2026), Inside Higher Ed and Fortune were read. Claims about the court record are documented by the opinion. Individual grantee harms are the plaintiffs' allegations as summarised by the court. Individual plaintiffs and DOGE staff are not named in public fields.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The federal court opinion finds that a DOGE staff member submitted grant descriptions to ChatGPT with a DEI yes/no prompt and that the outputs were folded into the lists used to select grants for termination. The opinion does not state whether each of the seven individual plaintiffs' grants was reviewed or flagged by ChatGPT.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"US: National Endowment for the Humanities grants terminated after DOGE staff used ChatGPT to flag projects as DEI-related","summary":"In March and early April 2025 (the opinion gives no date for the ChatGPT step), a DOGE staff member working with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) submitted short grant descriptions to ChatGPT with a prompt asking whether each project related at all to DEI, and the answers were combined with NEH staff ratings into lists of grants to terminate. More than 1,400 NEH grants (over $100 million) were terminated in notices sent 1 to 3 April 2025. A federal district court found the mass termination unlawful in May 2026 and described the ChatGPT step in its findings. Seven individual grantees who sued report lost or interrupted funding for their research and writing projects. The opinion does not state whether ChatGPT reviewed those seven grants.","incidentDate":"2025-03-12","incidentEndDate":"2025-04-03","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-03-08","aiSystem":"ChatGPT (OpenAI), used through a standardized DEI yes/no prompt","aiProduct":"ChatGPT","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["financial_loss","professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The court opinion describes seven individual grantee plaintiffs whose NEH awards were terminated before completion, and reports their allegations of lost funding, interrupted research and leave from employment taken in reliance on the awards. Individual counts beyond these seven are not established in the inspected sources.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"unclear","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":7,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"The court opinion names seven individual grantee plaintiffs whose awards were terminated. It states the terminations reached more than 1,400 grants awarded to scholars, writers, research institutions and other humanities organizations, and does not give a count of individual people. The opinion does not state whether these seven grants were flagged by ChatGPT. Organizations, members of plaintiff associations and the wider class are not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"assistant","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/2026-05/NEH.sj_.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"S.D.N.Y. opinion and order granting summary judgment, 7 May 2026","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T13:28:29.039734+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:19.404135+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2025"]},{"id":"2025-baltimore-county-md-school-ai-gun-alert-chip-bag-student-searched","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"after an AI-driven security system flagged the teen's empty bag of chips as a possible firearm","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"How did it come to be that we had police officers with guns drawn approaching a kid because of a bag of Doritos?","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Omnilert AI Gun Detection System warned school leaders at Kenwood High School that a student had a gun.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Police officers responded to the school, searched the individual, and quickly confirmed that they were not in possession of any weapons.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"An AI gun detection system (Omnilert) alerted on a Kenwood High School student in Baltimore County, the object was a bag of chips and not a weapon, and police searched the student.","causal_attribution":"The reports connect the police response to the alert. The district and the vendor say the system operated as designed and that humans review alerts, so responsibility for the police response is contested between the system, the review steps and the responding staff."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"They made me get on my knees, put my hands behind my back, and cuffed me,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"they had a gun pointed at me","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"handcuffed and searched","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The student reported being made to kneel, being handcuffed and searched, and having a gun pointed at them.","causal_attribution":"First-person account given to a local television station and relayed by the CNN wire and the Guardian (one chain). CNN also states the handcuffing in its own voice without naming a source other than the student interview. Police statements inspected confirm a search only."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"reviewed and canceled the gun detection alert after confirming there was no weapon","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The principal didn't immediately realize the alert had been canceled","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"she reported the matter to Kenwood's school resource officer, who called local police for support","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The Department of School Safety and Security reviewed and canceled the initial alert after confirming there was no weapon.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The school district security department reviewed and canceled the alert after confirming there was no weapon. A district spokesperson said the principal did not immediately realize the alert had been canceled. The principal reported the matter to the school resource officer, who called police.","causal_attribution":"Account of the review sequence comes from the principal letter and district spokespeople. It attributes the police response to a communication gap after human review and does not exonerate the alert."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Baltimore County officials say they want a review of the process that led to Monday's police response.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Baltimore County councilmembers are calling on school officials and police to review an A.I. gun detection system","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Our counselors will provide direct support to the students who were involved in this incident","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"County councilmembers called for a review of the AI system, and the school said counselors would support the students involved.","causal_attribution":"Institutional responses reported by the outlets. The outcome of any review is not established in the inspected sources."}],"effects":[{"label":"Student searched by armed police after a false AI weapon alert","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://abc7.com/post/student-handcuffed-doritos-bag-mistaken-gun-schools-ai-security-system-baltimore-county-maryland/18073796/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"wbal-relay"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/24/baltimore-student-ai-gun-detection-system-doritos","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"wbal-relay"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/false-alarm-gun-detection-kenwood-maryland-artificial-intelligence-review/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"wjz-cbs-baltimore"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["education","public_services"],"unknowns":["Event date is derived from the reports' \"Monday\" references relative to their publication dates (23 to 26 October 2025). The inspected bodies do not print the calendar date of the event.","The handcuffing and gun-pointing account is one first-person account relayed by two outlets, and CNN also states the handcuffing in its own voice without another named source. Police statements inspected confirm only a search after a report of a suspicious person with a weapon.","The outcome of the county review is not reported in the inspected sources.","The student's exact age is not stated. Sources call the student a teen and a child.","Vendor and district statements say the system worked as designed and that humans review alerts. Whether the review step or the alert caused the police dispatch is not settled."],"geography":{"basis":"The reports place the event at a high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, with the county police department and county council responding. Country is stated by place names in the inspected reports and is not inferred from outlet or vendor headquarters.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Three news reports read in full (one via Internet Archive capture). The AI alert, the absence of a weapon and the search are separately reported. The handcuffing account is attributed to the student. The student's name is omitted because the student is a minor.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Two separately reported chains say the AI alert flagged the object: the CNN wire with a vendor statement (its student account is WBAL-derived, as is the Guardian, a WBAL relay), and local CBS reporting with vendor and superintendent statements. Both also report human review steps between the alert and the police response.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Baltimore County, Maryland: school AI gun alert on a bag of chips leads to police search of a student","summary":"On a Monday evening in October 2025 (20 October by the reports' weekday references) an AI gun detection system (Omnilert) used at Kenwood High School alerted on a student holding an empty bag of chips. Police responded and searched the student and found no weapon. The student told a local television station that officers made them kneel, handcuffed them and pointed a gun at them. The school district says its security department reviewed and canceled the alert after confirming there was no weapon, and a district spokesperson said the principal did not immediately realize the alert had been canceled. County councilmembers called for a review. No outcome of a review is established in the sources.","incidentDate":"2025-10-20","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2025-10-23","aiSystem":"Omnilert AI Gun Detection System (video analytics on school security cameras)","aiProduct":"Omnilert gun detection","aiCompany":"Omnilert","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A student was searched by police after the AI alert and reported being handcuffed at gunpoint and fearing for their life (student account relayed by CNN and the Guardian). The school letter confirms a search and offers counseling.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"One student who was searched. Other students who witnessed the event are mentioned in the school letter but are not counted without a reported harm to each.","victimAgeRange":"minor","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/false-alarm-gun-detection-kenwood-maryland-artificial-intelligence-review/","primarySourceLabel":"CBS Baltimore (WJZ): A.I. gun detection false alarm at school has Baltimore County leaders calling for review, 23 October 2025","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T12:42:19.255568+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:16:56.487109+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2025"]},{"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-jacksonville-sheriff-facial-recognition-wrongful-arrest-father-operation-rescue-our-children","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'When investigators ran a search on the photos of the man with dark brown hair, it led them to'; 'Investigators told Nick they relied on facial recognition tools to identify him in the pictures, he recalled.'; 'The officers walked over to the man and told him to place his hands behind his back, slapping him in cuffs in front of customers and coworkers.'; 'An investigation by The Trib reveals the 38-year-old was arrested'; 'On May 14, 2025, court records show that'; 'logged on to the Skout online dating app with the username'; 'Nick’s arrest came in conjunction with a multi-agency sting called Operation Rescue Our Children'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"After a man on the Skout app sent two photos of a former friend to an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old during Operation Rescue Our Children in May 2025, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office investigators ran a search on the photos that led them to the friend, a 38-year-old supermarket assistant manager, and arrested him at work six days after the conversation ended; he recalls being told investigators relied on facial-recognition tools to identify him.","causal_attribution":"The Trib's investigation from court records and the man's recollection; the sheriff's office did not respond. The Trib's expert source attributes the arrest chiefly to inadequate policing."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'There is no indication in the court documents that officers carried out any other investigative work before arresting Nick, beyond verifying that he was the person in the photos'; 'Court records show that the day after Nick’s arrest, investigators issued the first of a string of subpoenas for account information behind the suspect’s online profile'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The Trib found no indication in the court documents of any investigative work before the arrest beyond verifying that he was the person in the photos; it reports that court records show investigators subpoenaed the account information the day after the arrest, and that the information showed the account belonged to another man.","causal_attribution":"The Trib's reading of court records; the records themselves were not read."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'costing them $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatizing his kids.'; 'A judge barred him from having any contact with the children for a month and a half'; 'And for nearly three months, he wasn’t able to reside at his family’s home'; 'The $105 a week for the court-ordered ankle monitor that tracked his every move.'; 'Forced to spend the night in jail'; 'The rent they couldn’t pay while Nick was suspended from his job.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"He spent a night in jail, was barred by a judge from any contact with his two children for a month and a half, could not live at home for nearly three months, wore a court-ordered ankle monitor and was suspended from his job; the family says the ordeal cost $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatised the children.","causal_attribution":"The family's account to the Trib."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'at his home on July 31, 2025, and he confessed to propositioning someone he thought was a young girl'; 'But the next day, prosecutors finally dropped the charges against Nick. On Aug. 4, 2025, a judge ordered Nick’s case expunged because the arrest was made “contrary to law or by mistake.”'; 'remained publicly available on the Duval courts website for more than a year after the judge ordered the records expunged.'; 'admitted to using photos of other people'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The account's owner confessed on 31 July 2025 to using photos of former friends; prosecutors dropped the charges the next day and on 4 August 2025 a judge ordered the case expunged, but the records remained publicly available on the Duval County clerk's website for more than a year.","causal_attribution":"Court records as reported by the Trib; the clerk's office acknowledged the failure to expunge."}],"effects":[{"label":"arrested at work, jailed overnight and charged with soliciting a child after investigators identified him from photos an impostor sent in a police sting","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"barred from contact with his two young children for a month and a half, fitted with an ankle monitor and suspended from work; the family puts the cost at $45,000","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://floridatrib.org/2026/09/28/how-ai-powered-bungling-by-florida-cops-cost-a-father-his-freedom-and-45000/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-29 in full (The Florida Trib, 28 September 2026, investigation by Kate Payne based on court records and interviews). Republished by the Florida Phoenix, which returned HTTP 403 and was not read.","independence_group":"florida-trib-investigation"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","relationships","finance","work"],"unknowns":["Which facial-recognition system was used and what match result it returned.","Whether the sheriff's office has reviewed the arrest or disciplined anyone (the Trib reports the lead detective applied for deferred retirement).","Whether the man will bring a legal claim."],"geography":{"basis":"The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office arrested the man at a Jacksonville supermarket; the case was in Duval County, Florida (The Florida Trib).","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a contextual case consistent with the existing facial-recognition wrongful-arrest rows: investigators identified a man through a search of photos an impostor sent in a sting, which he recalls being told used facial-recognition tools, and arrested him without further checks. The account rests on one investigative report drawing on court records and interviews; the sheriff's office did not respond. The man is pseudonymous in the source and his family is not named here.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The man recalls that investigators told him they relied on facial-recognition tools to identify him in the photos, and the Trib reports that investigators ran a search on the photos that led them to him. The Trib names FACESNXT as the system Jacksonville investigators use but does not establish that it was the tool run here. The decisions to seek a warrant and arrest without further investigation were the officers', prosecutors' and a judge's. The Trib's headline and narrative state in its own voice that officers relied on 'artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition tools'; the only sourcing it gives for that link is his recollection, and it cites no facial-recognition result from the court records.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Jacksonville, Florida: a 38-year-old father was arrested at work in May 2025 and charged with soliciting a child after sheriff's investigators identified him, he says with facial-recognition tools, from photos an impostor had sent to an undercover officer; charges were dropped in August 2025 after the real sender confessed, and the family says the ordeal cost $45,000","summary":"The Florida Trib (28 September 2026, republished by the Florida Phoenix) reports that in May 2025, during the multi-agency sting Operation Rescue Our Children, a man using the Skout dating app sent an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl two photos of someone else: a former friend, a supermarket assistant manager and father of two whom the Trib calls 'Nick'. Investigators told him they relied on facial-recognition tools to identify him in the pictures, he recalled, and the Trib found no indication in court documents of other investigative work before his arrest. He was handcuffed at work, charged with soliciting a child via computer and unlawful use of a two-way communications device, spent a night in jail, wore an ankle monitor, was barred from contact with his two young children for a month and a half and could not live at home for nearly three months. The account's owner, a man with a prior conviction for the same offence, admitted on 31 July 2025 using the photos; charges against the father were dropped the next day and a judge ordered the case expunged on 4 August 2025, though the records stayed publicly online for more than a year. The family says the ordeal cost $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatised the children. The sheriff's office did not respond to the Trib's questions.","incidentDate":"2025-05-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-09-28","aiSystem":"Facial-recognition search tools used by Jacksonville Sheriff's Office investigators to identify the man in photos sent during the sting (per his recollection of what investigators told him); the Trib notes that Jacksonville and other Florida agencies use the FACESNXT system maintained by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, but does not state which tool was run in this case","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm","financial_loss","relationship_disruption","psychological_distress","reputational_harm","professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The man was arrested, jailed overnight, charged with child-sex offences, monitored and separated from his children for weeks; he and his wife told The Florida Trib the ordeal cost $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatised their children.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":3,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"The arrested man and his two young children, whom the Trib reports were traumatised and separated from him (The Florida Trib). His wife describes her own distress and the financial burden; she is not added separately. Documented minimum 3.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-FL","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://floridatrib.org/2026/09/28/how-ai-powered-bungling-by-florida-cops-cost-a-father-his-freedom-and-45000/","primarySourceLabel":"The Florida Trib, 28 September 2026: How AI-powered bungling by Florida cops cost a father his freedom and $45,000","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T03:21:41.436188+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:07.027222+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial-recognition","wrongful-arrest","jacksonville","florida","sting-operation","impersonation","justice","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-orelien-goncourt-selection-removed-ai-detector-accusation","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Le 21 septembre, le compte « Balance ton Claude », jusque-là peu connu, affirme avoir soumis plusieurs extraits de C’était ça ou mourir au logiciel américain Pangram, spécialisé dans la détection de textes potentiellement générés par intelligence artificielle. Certains passages auraient obtenu des scores allant jusqu’à 100 % de probabilité de génération par IA.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'Les premières accusations ont été portées lundi par un compte anonyme sur X, mettant en avant le verdict du détecteur d'IA Pangram. L'essayiste Samuel Fitoussi a confirmé vendredi être derrière ce compte, Balance ton Claude, assurant n'être qu'un des membres d'un collectif.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The accusation began when an anonymous X account, Balance ton Claude, said it had run excerpts of the novel through the Pangram AI-detection software, with some passages scoring up to 100 per cent probability of AI generation; essayist Samuel Fitoussi later said he was one of the people behind the account.","causal_attribution":"Account of how the accusation arose, as reported."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'L'Académie Goncourt a annoncé, vendredi 25 septembre, la \"suppression\" du roman C'était ça ou mourir de Thélyson Orélien de sa première sélection'; 'L'ouvrage \"est selon toute vraisemblance très largement le produit d'une intelligence artificielle\", justifie-t-elle après plusieurs jours de polémique, expliquant se reposer sur le \"résultat convergent de plusieurs analyses de chercheurs et journalistes dignes de foi\".'; 'L'Académie Goncourt justifie également sa décision par \"des plagiats dont son auteur s'est rendu coupable au fil du temps et qui viennent d'être révélés\", qui ne concernent pas son roman mais au moins une nouvelle et des articles publiés au Canada.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'L'Académie Goncourt a annoncé vendredi qu'elle retirait le roman de l'auteur canado-haïtien Thélyson Orélien de sa sélection pour le prix Goncourt en raison des accusations de plagiat et d'utilisation de l'intelligence artificielle (IA) le visant.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On 25 September 2026 the Académie Goncourt removed the novel from its first selection, stating that it is in all likelihood very largely the product of an artificial intelligence on the basis of several analyses by researchers and journalists, and also citing plagiarism by the author in older texts published in Canada that do not concern the novel.","causal_attribution":"The Académie's stated reasons combine AI analyses and plagiarism findings; the weight given to the Pangram results is not stated. The communiqué itself was not read directly."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'L'écrivain canado-haïtien conteste avoir eu recours à l'intelligence artificielle, et a dénoncé jeudi une \"volonté\" de le \"faire taire\".'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Il explique que son style, marqué notamment par les répétitions et certains rythmes propres à son univers linguistique et culturel, pourrait être interprété à tort par des outils automatisés.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Orélien denies using artificial intelligence to write the novel and says its repetitions and rhythms reflect his linguistic and cultural background and may be misread by automated tools.","causal_attribution":"The author's denial; the Académie and the accusers maintain the contrary. No decisive evidence either way is reported."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Les éditions du Boréal, basées à Montréal, ont annoncé suspendre \"les activités promotionnelles\" autour du livre'; '\"Malheureusement, il nous est impossible à ce stade-ci d'infirmer ou de confirmer les allégations auxquelles l'auteur fait face\", a expliqué Boréal'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'Au Canada, les Éditions du Boréal ont suspendu les activités promotionnelles entourant le roman'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"His Montreal publisher, Éditions du Boréal, suspended promotional activities around the book, saying it could neither confirm nor refute the allegations.","causal_attribution":"Publisher statement as reported; the suspension followed both the AI and plagiarism allegations."}],"effects":[{"label":"novel removed from the Goncourt prize selection after accusations, based partly on AI-detector scores, that it was largely AI-generated","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"publisher suspended promotion of the book pending the allegations","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/livres/le-roman-de-thelyson-orelien-supprime-de-la-selection-du-prix-goncourt-en-raison-de-soupcons-de-recours-a-l-intelligence-artificielle-et-d-accusations-de-plagiats_8209475.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read live in French on 2026-09-28; bylined 'franceinfo avec AFP'. Quotes the Académie communiqué. Researcher translation.","independence_group":"goncourt-communique-afp"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.rts.ch/info/culture/livres/2026/article/thelyson-orelien-l-essayiste-samuel-fitoussi-dit-avoir-lance-la-polemique-29367142.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read live in French on 2026-09-28 (25 September 2026). No wire credit visible in the saved text but the account parallels the AFP copy; treated as the same chain. Researcher translation.","independence_group":"goncourt-communique-afp"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.juno7.ht/thelyson-orelien-polemique-ia-goncourt-pangram/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"fr","translation_note":"Read live in French on 2026-09-28 (26 September 2026). A Haitian synthesis of published reporting with no independent sourcing; treated as the same chain. Researcher translation.","independence_group":"goncourt-communique-afp"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://t24.com.tr/dunya/odullu-yazarin-romanina-yapay-zek-suclamasi-adayliktan-cikarildi,1350116","kind":"news_relay","access":"read","language":"tr","translation_note":"Read live in Turkish on 2026-09-28 (27 September 2026); relay of the same reporting. Researcher translation.","independence_group":"goncourt-communique-afp"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["work"],"unknowns":["Whether generative AI was used to write the novel; the author denies it.","Which analyses by researchers and journalists the Académie relied on, and how much weight it gave the Pangram scores relative to the plagiarism findings.","The novel's status on the Femina, Médicis and Renaudot lists after the Goncourt decision.","The author's own account of personal or financial effects beyond the public statements reported."],"geography":{"basis":"The decision was taken by the Académie Goncourt for the French literary prize (franceinfo) while the author was in France promoting the book (RTS). The author is described as Canadian-Haitian and his publisher is in Montreal, but his country of residence is not stated in the read sources, so no affected-person country is recorded.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["FR"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a contextual case (an AI-detection tool's output about his text launched public accusations of AI authorship, and the Académie Goncourt then removed his novel, citing unnamed analyses finding it probably AI-generated as well as separate plagiarism). AI authorship is disputed and unproven, and the decision also rested on separate plagiarism findings; the record states both. The author is a public figure; all read sources derive from the same public statements and AFP-led reporting.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-28"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Pangram AI-detection software was used by the accusing account to score excerpts of the novel as AI-generated (franceinfo; RTS; juno7). That generative AI was used to write the novel is disputed: the author denies it. The Académie relied on unspecified analyses by researchers and journalists, not solely on Pangram.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"France: the Académie Goncourt removes Thélyson Orélien's bestselling novel from its prize selection, saying it is in all likelihood largely AI-generated, days after an anonymous X account publicised Pangram AI-detector scores; the author denies using AI, and the Académie also cites separate plagiarism in his older texts","summary":"On 21 September 2026 an anonymous X account, Balance ton Claude, said it had run excerpts of Thélyson Orélien's debut novel C'était ça ou mourir through the American AI-detection software Pangram, with some passages scoring up to 100 per cent probability of AI generation. On 25 September the Académie Goncourt removed the novel from the first selection of sixteen books for its 2026 prize, stating that the work is 'in all likelihood very largely the product of an artificial intelligence', based on 'the convergent result of several analyses by researchers and journalists', and also citing plagiarism in older texts by the author published in Canada (at least one short story and articles), which do not concern the novel. Orélien, a 38-year-old Canadian-Haitian writer whose novel had won the Fnac novel prize, denies using AI and says its repetitions and certain rhythms reflect his linguistic and cultural world and may be misread by automated tools. His Montreal publisher Boréal suspended promotional activities, saying it could neither confirm nor refute the allegations. Essayist Samuel Fitoussi said he was one of the people behind the account. Whether AI was used to write the novel is disputed; AI-detector reliability is itself contested in the coverage.","incidentDate":"2026-09-21","incidentEndDate":"2026-09-25","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-09-25","aiSystem":"Pangram, an AI-text detection tool, used by the Balance ton Claude account to score excerpts of the novel (juno7; RTS; franceinfo); the alleged use of a generative-AI model to write the novel is denied by the author and unproven","aiProduct":"Pangram AI-text detector","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"disputed","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["professional_harm","reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The author's novel was removed from the Goncourt prize selection and his publisher suspended its promotion after public accusations, based partly on AI-detector scores, that the book was largely AI-generated; he denies using AI and the Académie also cited separate plagiarism (franceinfo with AFP; RTS; juno7).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"disputed","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person, the author Thélyson Orélien, whose novel was removed from the selection (franceinfo; RTS). Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"FR","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"internal_action","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/livres/le-roman-de-thelyson-orelien-supprime-de-la-selection-du-prix-goncourt-en-raison-de-soupcons-de-recours-a-l-intelligence-artificielle-et-d-accusations-de-plagiats_8209475.html","primarySourceLabel":"franceinfo (with AFP), 25 September 2026: Le roman de Thélyson Orélien supprimé de la sélection du prix Goncourt en raison de soupçons de recours à l'intelligence artificielle et d'accusations de plagiats","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-28T03:31:42.415125+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:48.719742+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["ai-detection","ai-detector-accusation","literary-prize","goncourt","pangram","france","disputed","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-kimberlee-williams-maryland-facial-recognition-wrongful-arrest-six-months-jail","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Someone on the listserv ran the image through facial recognition technology and sent back Ms. Williams’ name and photo as a purported match to the suspect.'; 'the detective assigned to the case concealed that the entire basis of Ms. Williams purported identification was a lead from an unknown and unreliable face recognition technology search by an unknown entity.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'A respondent to the investigator’s CrimeDex bulletin “suggested, using facial recognition software” that Williams was the suspect, he told police.'; 'Each department charged Williams in 2020 based on the identification reported by the bank investigator and a visual comparison of Williams and the woman in the bank from photos, according to charging documents and incident reports.'; 'Montgomery County police did not disclose that Williams had been identified using facial recognition when they sought charges against her, according to police records.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'The bank shared the result with detectives from three Maryland counties'; 'relying instead on only their own visual comparisons of photos of Ms. Williams and photos of the suspect.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A bank investigator shared surveillance images of the fraud suspect on the CrimeDex network; a respondent used facial-recognition software to name Williams as a match; police in three Maryland counties charged her on the investigator's identification and their own visual comparison of photos, and the Montgomery County detective did not disclose the facial-recognition search when seeking charges.","causal_attribution":"The ACLU's account and the Washington Post's review of police records, charging documents and bank correspondence agree. The Post published on the day the ACLU sent its letters and does not say how it obtained the records; it attributes the expungement, the statute of limitations and the social-media alibi material to the ACLU. The Post adds that Montgomery and Anne Arundel police also cited her past check-fraud convictions; Anne Arundel police say they corroborate outside tips."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'On June 23, 2021, Ms. Williams was accompanying one of her daughters, a DoorDash driver'; 'Ms. Williams spent 23 days in an Oklahoma jail before a Maryland officer arrived'; 'Those cases were finally dismissed in December 2021. All told, Ms. Williams spent six months behind bars.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'and jailed for six months before the charges were dismissed, according to court records.'; 'Williams was held in jail in Oklahoma for about three weeks before being transported to Maryland.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Williams was arrested in June 2021 (on 23 June, according to the ACLU) at a military base near Lawton, Oklahoma, held about three weeks in Oklahoma, transported to Maryland, charged in three counties, and jailed about six months in total before the charges were dismissed.","causal_attribution":"ACLU and Washington Post (citing court records) independently."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'She faced 16 charges across the three counties, including 12 felonies.'; 'The two other counties dismissed their charges against Williams in December.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'Montgomery County prosecutors dropped their charges against Ms. Williams in October 2021'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"She faced 16 charges across the three counties, including 12 felonies; Montgomery County dropped its charges in October 2021 and the other two counties dismissed theirs in December 2021.","causal_attribution":"Charge count from the Washington Post only; the October 2021 Montgomery dismissal and December 2021 dismissals are reported by both the ACLU and the Post."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'said her mother was depressed after leaving jail and struggled to readjust after the time behind bars.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'this ordeal took a significant toll, with serious consequences for her mental and physical health to this day.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"After her release Williams was depressed and struggled to readjust, according to her daughter; the ACLU says the ordeal had serious consequences for her mental and physical health.","causal_attribution":"Family and advocate accounts; Williams herself told the Post she thinks illnesses caught in jail may have worsened a later condition, which is not established."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Today, the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Maryland sent letters to three Maryland police departments on behalf of Kimberlee Williams'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'The Montgomery County Police Department declined to comment on the ACLU’s complaint, citing an active investigation.'; 'said the agency “investigates and corroborates any outside tips and leads it receives before applying for criminal charges.”'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"On 14 April 2026 the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland sent complaint letters to the Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel county police departments seeking an apology and reforms; Montgomery County police declined to comment citing an active investigation, and Anne Arundel police said they independently corroborate outside tips.","causal_attribution":"ACLU announcement and the departments' statements to the Banner."}],"effects":[{"label":"arrested in Oklahoma and jailed about six months in Oklahoma and Maryland on 16 bank-fraud charges, all later dismissed, after a facial-recognition search named her; depression and health effects reported","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/woman-wrongly-jailed-for-months-based-on-faulty-facial-recognition-technology-demands-apology-from-maryland-police-departments","kind":"press_release","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27 (ACLU press release, 14 April 2026). The ACLU represents Williams.","independence_group":"aclu"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.aclu.org/cases/kimberlee-williams-wrongful-arrest","kind":"other","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27 (ACLU case page). Same organisation as s1.","independence_group":"aclu"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/apr/14/that-wasnt-me-how-facial-recognition-led-to-a-woma/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27: the Washington Post article (14 April 2026) as syndicated in full by the Spokesman-Review. The Post reviewed police and bank records, charging documents and interview video and interviewed Williams and her daughter. The washingtonpost.com original timed out (Archive 403).","independence_group":"washington-post"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.thebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/aclu-facial-recognition-maryland-police-YXUU7AXEMNFIHKHJ5FZB2RLJPA/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-27 (Baltimore Banner, April 2026). Mostly relays the ACLU; cited only for the departments' own responses to the Banner.","independence_group":"baltimore-banner"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use","institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice"],"unknowns":["Who ran the facial-recognition search on CrimeDex, with which software, and what the returned match contained.","How much weight each department gave the facial-recognition lead against their own photo comparisons and her prior convictions.","The exact release date in December 2021.","Whether the three departments have answered the ACLU complaints, and whether anyone else was charged.","Whether jail conditions contributed to her later illness (her own suggestion).","The dates of the frauds: the Washington Post gives December 2019 for the Potomac withdrawals but also quotes her daughter placing the Maryland cases in December 2020 and January 2021; the dates in the other two counties are not reported."],"geography":{"basis":"The frauds and charges were in Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties, Maryland; Williams lived in Oklahoma and was arrested at Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma (ACLU; Washington Post).","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 search's identification of a person led to her arrest and about six months in jail: the ACLU and the Washington Post, which reviewed police records independently, agree on the facial-recognition lead, the charging and the dismissals. Williams is named in her own right; family members are not named.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-27"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The bank investigator told Montgomery County police that a CrimeDex respondent 'suggested, using facial recognition software' that Williams was the suspect (Washington Post, from police records), and the ACLU says someone on the listserv ran the image through facial-recognition technology and returned her name and photo. The software, its operator and the match output were not produced; police also made their own photo comparisons, and two departments cited her old convictions. The made_claim_about relation reflects the search's identification of her as the suspect.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Maryland/Oklahoma: Kimberlee Williams, an Oklahoma woman who says she had never been to Maryland, was arrested in June 2021 and jailed about six months on bank-fraud charges in three Maryland counties after a facial-recognition search by an unknown CrimeDex respondent named her; all charges were dismissed by December 2021 and the ACLU filed complaints in April 2026","summary":"According to police and bank records reviewed by the Washington Post, in December 2019 a woman made fraudulent withdrawals at a SunTrust branch in Potomac, Maryland; branches in two other Maryland counties were also defrauded. A bank investigator posted the surveillance photos on CrimeDex, an online network of police and corporate investigators; an unknown respondent ran the image through facial-recognition software and returned Kimberlee Williams's name and photo, and the investigator told Montgomery County police that facial-recognition software had identified her. Police in Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties charged her in 2020 on the investigator's identification and their own visual comparison of photos (two departments also cited her old Oklahoma check-fraud convictions), without reported checks of her whereabouts; Montgomery County police did not disclose the facial-recognition search in the charging application, according to police records reviewed by the Washington Post and the ACLU. On 23 June 2021 she was arrested at the gate of Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma, while accompanying her daughter on a DoorDash delivery, spent about three weeks in an Oklahoma jail, was flown to Maryland, and faced 16 charges including 12 felonies. The counties dismissed the charges one after another, in October and December 2021, after about six months in jail. Her daughter says she was depressed afterwards; the ACLU says the ordeal harmed her mental and physical health. On 14 April 2026 the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland sent complaint letters to the three departments seeking an apology and reforms.","incidentDate":"2021-06-23","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-04-14","aiSystem":"An unidentified facial-recognition search run by an unknown respondent on the CrimeDex investigators' network against a bank's surveillance image (ACLU; Washington Post); the software and operator are not identified","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Williams spent about six months in jails in Oklahoma and Maryland on 16 charges that were all dismissed; the ACLU and the Washington Post attribute the arrest to a facial-recognition match that police relied on without independent investigation, and her daughter says she was depressed afterwards (ACLU; Washington Post via Spokesman-Review).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person arrested and jailed, Kimberlee Williams (ACLU; Washington Post). Family members' distress is described but not counted. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-MD","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"pending","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/apr/14/that-wasnt-me-how-facial-recognition-led-to-a-woma/","primarySourceLabel":"Washington Post via the Spokesman-Review, 14 April 2026: 'That wasn't me': How facial recognition led to a woman being jailed for 6 months","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-27T03:39:40.380472+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:43.031229+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial-recognition","wrongful-arrest","police","crimedex","maryland","oklahoma","aclu","justice","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":"2025-washington-il-snapchat-flag-student-teacher-arrest","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'The social media site flagged the message and warned the FBI, which then notified the Sheriff's Office'; 'the office had been informed on Jan. 29, 2025, at 1:06 p.m. that the FBI had received a threat via Snapchat involving someone at John A. Hensey School in Washington.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"District email: 'The use of that obviously inappropriate language on the social media site triggered a report to law enforcement who subsequently interviewed the student teacher.'","relation":"context","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Snapchat's systems flagged the woman's private group-chat message and warned the FBI, which notified the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office on 29 January 2025 at 1:06 p.m.","causal_attribution":"One outlet group (Peoria Journal Star) carrying two distinct records (sheriff's reports via FOIA; the district's email). The flagging technology is unspecified; no second independent outlet describes the mechanism, so the claim stays reported."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'In a chat with her boyfriend and her two roommates, she advised whether she should \"shoot the child or just the whole school?\"' (sheriff's reports).","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Volpe sent the message to her friends, asking them whether she should \"shoot\" the student.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The flagged message asked whether she should 'shoot the child or just the whole school' (sheriff's reports' rendering); the district's email and 25News Now report her asking friends whether she should 'shoot' the student.","causal_attribution":"Wordings differ slightly between the sheriff's reports and the district/25News accounts; both versions are attributed. She confirmed sending the message and said it was a joke."},{"id":"c3","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"Body-cam account: interview in an empty classroom, Miranda rights, the flagged message shown, consent forms, classroom search finding nothing; 'she would be arrested in Tazewell County'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'deputies arrested [her] at John L. Hensey Elementary School around 1 p.m. Wednesday. She was booked into the Tazewell County Jail for disorderly conduct.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Deputies interviewed her at the school, read her Miranda rights, searched her phone and belongings with consent and found no weapons; they arrested her on a disorderly conduct charge and she was booked into the Tazewell County Jail.","causal_attribution":"The arrest and booking are established by two independent local outlets; the interview detail comes from the FOIA body-cam footage and police reports."},{"id":"c4","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Deputies interviewed her and came to the conclusion that she made the comment out of \"exasperation,\" had no intentions to harm anyone, and was not a threat to the school.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"District email: 'Law enforcement officers quickly determined that the student teacher made the statement out of exasperation... but did not have any actual intent to shoot anyone or otherwise cause harm.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The Sheriff's Office and the district concluded the remark was made out of exasperation, with no intent to harm and no threat to the school.","causal_attribution":"Both the district's letter and the deputies' own conclusion are attributed; no source reports any contrary finding."},{"id":"c5","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'it said the student teacher would not be returning to District 50 to complete her assignment.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Superintendent Chad Allaman's letter: 'Volpe is not returning to the school to finish her educational assignment.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"The district told parents she would not return to District 50 to complete her educational assignment.","causal_attribution":"The district's decision is attributed to its own letter carried by two outlets."}],"effects":[{"label":"arrest and loss of a teaching placement after an automated flag escalated a private joke to law enforcement","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.pjstar.com/story/news/local/2026/04/10/how-an-fbi-tip-led-to-arrest-of-a-student-teacher-in-washington-illinois/88217675007/","kind":"news_report_foia_records","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2026-04-10T11:15Z; 34 paragraphs). Based on sheriff's deputy and detective reports plus body-camera footage obtained by FOIA from the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office.","independence_group":"pjstar"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.pjstar.com/story/news/education/2025/01/30/washington-il-student-teacher-makes-inappropriate-shooting-comment-district-says/78061557007/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2025-01-30T23:13Z). Based on the District 50 email to parents; withheld the teacher's name.","independence_group":"pjstar"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.25newsnow.com/2025/01/31/exasperated-student-teacher-wont-return-after-allegedly-commenting-about-shooting-student/","kind":"local_tv_news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2025-01-31T17:07Z). Attributes to deputies and the school district; names the teacher from jail records — the name is deliberately not carried into this public record.","independence_group":"week-25news"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://thoughtcatalog.com/jeremy-london/2026/08/snapchat-scans-your-private-group-chats-and-a-22-year-old-teacher-found-out-when-deputies-showed-up-to-arrest-her-over-a-joke/","kind":"content_farm_rehash","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2026-08-02). Two substantive paragraphs, 'reportedly' framing, no place, date or document; derivative of the 2025 local reporting with embellishments. Recorded for provenance; never cited as support.","independence_group":"thought-catalog"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["education","work","justice","privacy"],"unknowns":["The disposition of the disorderly conduct charge (dismissal, plea, supervision) is not reported in the inspected sources.","The flagging technology Snapchat used (automated classifiers, hash matching or otherwise) is not specified in the inspected records.","Whether she continued teacher training elsewhere is not reported.","The school's name appears as 'John A. Hensey School' (Peoria Journal Star) and 'John L. Hensey Elementary School' (25News Now); the discrepancy is unresolved.","The exact interval between sending the message and the FBI referral is not stated; content-farm claims of 'within an hour' are unverified."],"geography":{"basis":"Event: John A. Hensey School, Washington, Illinois (25News Now renders the school name 'John L. Hensey Elementary School'), and the Tazewell County Jail. Affected person: the student teacher at that school. No court proceeding is reported, so court_countries is [].","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an institutional-use automated-moderation case: a consequential institutional response (arrest, placement loss) to an automated flag of a private message, documented by FOIA-based local reporting. She is an adult; although local TV named her from jail records, she is not named here because deputies cleared her of intent and republication adds reputational risk without evidential value.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Police reports obtained under FOIA state 'the social media site flagged the message and warned the FBI', and the district's email says the language use 'triggered a report to law enforcement'; no human reporter was involved. The flagging technology (automated classifiers or otherwise) is not specified in the inspected records.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about","made_claim_about"]},"name":"Washington, Illinois: Snapchat flagged a student teacher's private joke to the FBI; she was arrested at her school and lost her placement","summary":"On 29 January 2025, a 22-year-old student teacher at a District 50 elementary school in Washington, Illinois, vented in a private Snapchat group chat with her boyfriend and two roommates after a third-grade student turned off her computer mid lesson-plan, asking whether she should 'shoot the child or just the whole school' (per sheriff's reports). Snapchat's systems flagged the message and warned the FBI, which notified the Tazewell County Sheriff's Office at 1:06 p.m. Deputies interviewed her at the school, confirmed she sent it as a joke, searched her phone and belongings with her consent and found no weapons, and arrested her on a disorderly conduct charge; they concluded she had spoken out of 'exasperation' with no intent to harm and no threat to the school. The district told parents she would not return to complete her educational assignment.","incidentDate":"2025-01-29","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2025-01-30","aiSystem":"Snapchat automated content-flagging system","aiProduct":"Snapchat content-flagging system","aiCompany":"Snap Inc.","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["legal_harm","professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A private joke flagged by an automated system led to an armed-response interview at her workplace, arrest and jail booking on a disorderly conduct charge, and the loss of her student-teaching placement, although deputies and the district concluded she never intended harm.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One documented harmed person: the student teacher, subject to the platform's institutional automated flagging (counted under institutional use, not as an AI user). No student or staff member was aware of the conversation per the district; the referenced third-grade student is not counted as harmed (deputies found no threat and no one else saw the private message).","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"criminal_charges","outcomeStatus":"unknown","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.pjstar.com/story/news/local/2026/04/10/how-an-fbi-tip-led-to-arrest-of-a-student-teacher-in-washington-illinois/88217675007/","primarySourceLabel":"Peoria Journal Star (10 Apr 2026) — FOIA-based account: sheriff's reports and body-camera footage","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-15T05:24:48.263548+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:21.046347+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["privacy","automated-moderation","snapchat","education","arrest","institutional-use","illinois"]},{"id":"2025-keene-v-google-ai-overview-defamation","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Opinion page 2 lists Overviews 1–4 separately: 1, 2 and 4 concern life without parole; 2 mentions murders of three women; 3 says he was convicted of drug trafficking. The analysis of Overview 3 and conclusion explain its substantial-truth dismissal.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Complaint excerpt: statements that he 'is serving a life sentence without parole for multiple convictions' and 'for the murders of 3 women'.","relation":"context","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The court’s opinion recounts four challenged Google AI Overviews between approximately 24 May and 27 June 2025. The complaint alleges that Overviews 1, 2 and 4 falsely said Keene was serving life without parole, with Overview 2 adding murders of three women. Overview 3 instead said he had been convicted of drug trafficking; the court considered that statement substantially true.","causal_attribution":"Allegations of the complaint as recited by the court; accepted as true only for the motion to dismiss."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Page 2: 'Keene complained to Google about the false statements on three occasions ... Google allegedly apologized ... and deemed the statements errors made by its Artificial Intelligence.' and 'AI Overviews 1 and 2 were seen by various family members, friends, and acquaintances.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Complaint excerpt: 27 May 2025 complaint; Google 'privately apologized', attributing the statements to 'an unknown error made by their Artificial Intelligence Platform'.","relation":"context","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The complaint alleges he notified Google on 27 May, 31 May and after 27 June 2025, that Google apologised each time and attributed the statements to errors by its AI, and that Overviews 1 and 2 were seen by family members, friends and acquaintances.","causal_attribution":"Allegations as recited by the court."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Pages 1 and 12: 'that motion is granted in part and denied in part' ... 'the Court denies Google's motion to dismiss AI Overviews 1 and 2, and grants Google's motion to dismiss AI Overviews 3 and 4 without prejudice. Keene may file an amended complaint by October 13, 2026.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Docket entry 29, 14 September 2026: 'Memorandum Opinion and Order AND Order on Motion to Dismiss'.","relation":"context","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Post quoting the opinion's actual-malice and disclaimer holdings.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"On 14 September 2026 Judge Thomas M. Durkin denied Google's motion to dismiss the defamation per se claim as to Overviews 1 and 2, holding that the plaintiff, a public figure, had plausibly pleaded actual malice through his three notifications, and dismissed the claims on Overviews 3 (substantially true) and 4 (publication not alleged) without prejudice, with leave to amend by 13 October 2026.","causal_attribution":"Court ruling on the pleadings; no finding of liability."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"Page 2: 'Keene filed his complaint ... on July 30, 2025, in the Circuit Court of Cook County. Google removed the suit to federal court on September 22, 2025.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Docket header: filed 22 September 2025, No. 1:25-cv-11431.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The suit was filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County on 30 July 2025 and removed by Google to federal court on 22 September 2025.","causal_attribution":"Procedural history from the court record."}],"effects":[{"label":"reputational_harm_from_false_ai_statements","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.486629/gov.uscourts.ilnd.486629.29.0.pdf","kind":"court_opinion","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Memorandum Opinion and Order, ECF No. 29, filed 14 September 2026; PDF read in full via CourtListener RECAP on 2026-09-15.","independence_group":"court-record"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71417738/keene-v-google-llc/","kind":"court_docket","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Public docket page read on 2026-09-15.","independence_group":"court-record"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://reason.com/volokh/2026/09/14/federal-court-allows-libel-by-ai-claim-brought-by-protagonist-of-apple-tvs-black-bird-series-to-go-forward/","kind":"legal_commentary","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-09-15; quotes the opinion.","independence_group":"court-record"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://reason.com/volokh/2025/09/23/from-prison-to-helping-the-fbi-to-an-apple-tv-miniseries-to-google-hallucinated-libel/","kind":"legal_commentary","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-09-15; quotes the complaint at removal.","independence_group":"court-record"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["everyday_life","privacy","justice"],"unknowns":["The plaintiff's residence and the locations where the Overviews were generated or viewed are not stated in the inspected records.","No damages figure appears in the inspected records.","The complaint exhibits (screenshots of the Overviews) were not inspected.","The case continues; an amended complaint was due by 13 October 2026."],"geography":{"basis":"The AI Overviews were generated online in response to searches; where they were generated or viewed is not stated. The plaintiff's residence is not stated in the inspected records, and the charter does not infer a country from the court. Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, after removal from the Circuit Court of Cook County.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published on the strength of the court's own opinion and docket, read in full, with legal commentary as context. The plaintiff is a public figure who sued under his own name; allegations are attributed to the complaint and the ruling is limited to the pleadings.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The statements at issue appeared in Google's AI Overviews, and the court's opinion recites the allegation that Google attributed them to errors by its artificial intelligence. The screenshots are exhibits to the complaint and were not inspected here; the court accepted the allegations as true for the motion to dismiss only.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Keene v. Google: defamation claim over AI Overviews calling an author a convicted murderer survives dismissal","summary":"An author and television producer, the subject of the Apple TV series 'Black Bird', sued Google, alleging that AI Overviews shown for searches about him in May and June 2025 falsely said he was serving a life sentence without parole, in one version for the murders of three women. He says he notified Google three times and received apologies attributing the statements to its AI, yet similar statements kept appearing. On 14 September 2026 the Northern District of Illinois denied Google's motion to dismiss as to two of the four challenged Overviews and dismissed the other two without prejudice. This was a ruling on the pleadings, not a finding that the allegations were proven.","incidentDate":"2025-05-24","incidentEndDate":"2025-06-27","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2025-09-23","aiSystem":"Google AI Overviews","aiProduct":"Google AI Overviews","aiCompany":"Google LLC","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"verified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The plaintiff alleges that false AI-generated statements that he was a convicted murderer serving life without parole were shown to searchers, including family, friends and acquaintances, and continued after he notified Google.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person is the subject of the alleged defamatory statements and the plaintiff (court opinion). Family and acquaintances who saw the statements are not counted as harmed.","victimAgeRange":"adult","outcomeType":"lawsuit_ongoing","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.486629/gov.uscourts.ilnd.486629.29.0.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"Memorandum Opinion and Order, Keene v. Google LLC, No. 25 C 11431 (N.D. Ill. 14 September 2026), ECF No. 29, via CourtListener RECAP","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-15T03:23:44.732123+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:07.683768+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["defamation","ai-overviews","google","hallucination","lawsuit","reputational-harm"]}]}