{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-09-30T07:07:01.232Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"2026","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":16,"coverage":{"cases":16,"countries":7,"languages":8,"unknownLocation":4,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":2,"minors":1,"coreRelations":3,"contextualRelations":16,"mixedRelations":3,"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-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-x-grok-reportedly-disclosed-adult-performer-legal-name-and-birthdate-in-reply-to-user","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Porn performer Siri Dahl’s personal information, including her full legal name and birthday, was publicly exposed earlier this month by xAI’s Grok chatbot.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"so someone on X replied, “Who is she? What is her name?” and tagged @grok to get an answer.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Grok provided her personal information unprompted; the user likely only wanted information on what performer appeared in the clip.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"revealing her legal name and birth date to users","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Since grok doxxed me in early Feb, AI scrapers have reproduced my legal name on hundreds more websites","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"I asked 404 to publish my legal name in this article.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"In early 2026 (early February according to 404 Media and the performer, possibly earlier according to Stern), in reply to an X user who asked who the performer in a clip was and what her name was and tagged Grok, Grok answered with the performer's stage name together with her birthdate and legal name. 404 Media describes the personal details as unprompted and says the user likely wanted only to know which performer appeared in the clip.","causal_attribution":"The 404 Media article shows a screenshot of the X reply that was not inspected as an image. Mashable relays 404 Media. The affected person's own post gives the same account and dates the reply to early February. Grok's own reply text is not quoted here because it contains the personal details."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Almost instantly, harassers started opening Facebook accounts in her name and posting stolen porn clips with her real name on sites for leaking OnlyFans content.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"There are a ton of Facebook accounts that come up that are pretending to be me, using my real name,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"There are now porn leak sites that are posting porn of me using only my legal name, not even putting my stage name on it.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Users are now asking Grok for the make and model of Dahl’s car, her address, and other dangerous personal information.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Now, Dahl is having to call her family and put defensive plans in place.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"AI scrapers have reproduced my legal name on hundreds more websites, many of which have wildly inaccurate claims","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"After the disclosure the performer reports that impersonating Facebook accounts using her legal name appeared, that stolen clips of her were posted under her legal name on leak sites, and that her legal name was reproduced on hundreds of other websites, some with inaccurate claims about her. 404 Media reports that users asked Grok for the make and model of her car and her address without an accurate reply, and that she is calling family members to put defensive plans in place.","causal_attribution":"The Facebook accounts, leak-site posts and the family measures are the performer's statements as quoted by 404 Media and in her own post. The queries to Grok about her car and address are stated in 404 Media's own voice. The impersonating accounts, leak-site posts and Grok queries were not inspected. The timing (\"almost instantly\") is 404 Media's wording. No physical harm or threat is reported."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Dahl has used the name ... since the beginning of her career in the adult industry in 2012.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"information she'd protected until now.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"I've been paying for data removal services for like, at least six years now","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The performer had used her stage name since 2012 and had paid for data removal services for at least six years to keep her legal name private.","causal_attribution":"The performer's own account as reported by 404 Media. Her data removal spending was not documented."},{"id":"c4","status":"disputed","evidence":[{"locator":"It stated that Dahl's legal name and birthdate are already public on the internet, which Dahl denied.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"been getting a lot of replies and reposts from people on here and twitter saying \"your name was on a random facebook page since september!\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"and my *real* name was NEVER published on any verifiable source associated with my stage name.","relation":"contradicts","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"\"My legal name only became public after you doxxed me, and now thanks to you it's been proliferated all over the internet by other AI scrapers","relation":"contradicts","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Dahl said she doesn’t know where Grok originally got her legal name from.","relation":"context","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Bei Googles KI-Zusammenfassungen wird der Name als nicht bekannt angegeben.","relation":"context","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"Whether the legal name was already publicly available before Grok's reply is disputed. Grok's reply to the performer said the details were already public, and people told her a Facebook page carried the name since September. The performer denies it and says the name was never published on a verifiable source tied to her stage name. Stern reports that Google's AI summaries list the name as unknown and that ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini each say they would not release it.","causal_attribution":"The pre-existing availability of the name was not established either way. The Facebook page and any earlier X post were not inspected. The September date comes from replies the performer relays, and the year is not stated."}],"effects":[{"label":"Legal name and birthdate of an adult performer disclosed by Grok on X, followed by reported impersonation accounts, leak-site posts under the legal name and defensive plans she is putting in place with family","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.404media.co/grok-doxing-real-names-birthdates-siri-dahl/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"404-media"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://mashable.com/article/siri-dahl-doxxed-by-grok","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"404-media"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://bsky.app/profile/siridahl.com/post/3mfa5dt66qs2h","kind":"social_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"affected-person-posts"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://bsky.app/profile/siridahl.com/post/3mfio2pwq5c2l","kind":"social_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"affected-person-posts"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://bsky.app/profile/siridahl.com/post/3mfip3jssec2y","kind":"social_post","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"affected-person-posts"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://www.stern.de/digital/online/pornostar-hielt-ihren-namen-geheim---dann-plauderte-musks-ki-ihn-aus-37169054.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"de","translation_note":"German-language article read from an Internet Archive capture of 3 March 2026 (the direct request returned HTTP 403) and cited in English paraphrase. The quoted German passages are verbatim. No human translator checked the paraphrase.","independence_group":"stern"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["privacy","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["The date of Grok's reply within January and February 2026 is not fixed. 404 Media and the performer's 19 February post say early February, while a 23 February post refers to 'before Jan 20th' and stern.de says she found the reply weeks after it appeared.","The 404 Media page returned only its opening paragraphs to a direct request. The full text was read from an Internet Archive capture dated 19 February 2026, which may differ from later edits.","The original Grok reply, the screenshots, the impersonating Facebook accounts, the leak-site posts and the queries about her car and address were not inspected. The performer's Bluesky posts were read as text records, and her X posts only as quoted by Mashable.","Where Grok obtained the legal name is unknown. The performer says she does not know and wonders whether identity documents submitted to X for impersonation reports were the source, and no source read confirms or rules that out.","Whether the name was already published before the reply is disputed (claim c4). The earlier Facebook page and X post that people cited to her were not located or inspected.","No statement from xAI or X about the disclosure was found. 404 Media reports that X did not respond and Mashable reports that it asked the performer's representatives and xAI for comment.","The extent of the harassment beyond the performer's own statements, and whether the reported family measures were carried out, is not documented."],"geography":{"basis":"The inspected sources do not state where the performer lives or where the disclosure and harassment occurred. The disclosure happened on X, which is international. Grok's quoted description of the performer's nationality is not used as a location.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"The 404 Media article (full text via an archive capture), the Mashable article, three of the performer's Bluesky posts and the stern.de article were read. Mashable and stern.de relay 404 Media, and 404 Media and the performer's posts rest on her account, so the claims are reported and the prior-availability question is left disputed. The performer spoke publicly under her stage name, quoted by two outlets and in her own posts, and asked 404 Media to publish her legal name. The record names her and omits her legal name, birthdate and the pages that carry them.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"404 Media reports that Grok's reply on X to a user's question gave the performer's legal name and birthdate, and shows a screenshot that was not inspected as an image. Mashable quotes a further Grok reply to the performer on X (\"I'm sorry you're upset.\") that said the details were already public. Grok's source for the name is unknown. The performer suggests it may have come from identity documents X held, and stern.de says Grok denied having such access. No xAI statement was found.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about","communicated_with"]},"name":"Grok reportedly disclosed an adult performer's legal name and birthdate in an X reply, followed by reported impersonation accounts and leak-site posts under the legal name","summary":"In early 2026 (404 Media and the performer's 19 February post say early February, while Stern reports she found the reply weeks after it appeared) an X user replied to a clip of adult performer Siri Dahl, asking who the performer was and what her name was, and tagged Grok. According to 404 Media, Grok answered with her stage name, her birthdate and her legal name, and the user likely wanted only to know which performer appeared in the clip. Dahl has used the stage name since 2012 according to 404 Media, and she says she had paid for data removal services for at least six years to keep the legal name private. She reports that impersonating Facebook accounts and leak-site posts under the legal name then appeared and that the name spread across hundreds of websites. 404 Media reports that users asked Grok for the make and model of her car and her address without an accurate reply, and that she is calling family members to put defensive plans in place. Grok's reply to her protest said the details were already public, which she denies. Where Grok obtained the name is unknown. Dahl spoke publicly about the event and asked 404 Media to publish her legal name. This record omits the legal name and birthdate.","incidentDate":"2026-01-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"year","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-02-19","aiSystem":"Grok (xAI chatbot on X)","aiProduct":"Grok","aiCompany":"xAI","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm","exploitation_or_abuse"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The performer told 404 Media and said in her own posts that after Grok's reply gave her legal name and birthdate, impersonating Facebook accounts and leak-site posts under the legal name appeared and her legal name was reproduced on hundreds of websites (some with inaccurate claims). 404 Media reports that users asked Grok for her car details and address without an accurate reply and that she is calling family members to put defensive plans in place. She says she had spent years and thousands of dollars on data removal services to keep the name private. No physical harm or threat is reported.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One performer who spoke publicly about the disclosure is reported harmed. Family members are mentioned as people she is warning and are not reported harmed, and the X user who asked Grok is not counted.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"chatbot","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.404media.co/grok-doxing-real-names-birthdates-siri-dahl/","primarySourceLabel":"404 Media: 'Grok Exposed a Porn Performer's Legal Name and Birthdate' (19 Feb 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:16:30.069014+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:59.169171+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-south-africa-sassa-elife-certification-portal-facial-verification-failures-reported-by-pensioners","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The eLife Certification was implemented on March 30, 2026, as a digital verification tool to curb fraud.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Beneficiaries who fail to complete the process risk having their grants suspended.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"secure biometric verification through the electronic Know Your Client (eKYC) system","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Beneficiaries who fail to complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension of their grants.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"SASSA's eLife Certification is a self-service life certification on its online portal that uses biometric verification through its electronic Know Your Client (eKYC) system. IOL reports it was implemented on 30 March 2026. SASSA said beneficiaries who fail to complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension of their grants.","causal_attribution":"The implementation date comes from IOL alone. SASSA statements read do not give a start date. The suspension consequence is SASSA's own stated rule and no suspension of either pensioner's grant is reported."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"SASSA would like to apologise to all our beneficiaries who could not access our self-service portal after they were notified to undertake the eLife Certification verification process by the Agency.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"there were system glitches which led to delay and disruptions in completing eLife Certification, leading to long queues at SASSA offices.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"the Agency can report that the challenge has been resolved.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On 10 April 2026 SASSA apologised to beneficiaries who could not access its self-service portal after being notified to complete eLife Certification. It said system glitches linked to interfaces with other departments had caused delays and disruptions and long queues at its offices, and said the challenge had been resolved.","causal_attribution":"SASSA's own account of its portal. The statement does not mention facial recognition and attributes the glitches to interfaces with other departments."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"both pensioners, told IOL they had tried to complete the facial recognition option on the portal but to no avail.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"We have been trying since Thursday, April 2, to do the selfie bit but it does not work after trying for 22 times","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A pensioner couple told IOL they had tried the facial recognition option on the eLife portal 22 times since 2 April 2026 without success. IOL published the account on 23 April 2026.","causal_attribution":"Single first-person account relayed by one outlet. The cause of the failures is not established. The department attributes facial verification problems in general to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing Home Affairs biometric records (see c6)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"IOL has been inundated with emails and calls from beneficiaries nationwide claiming they were unable to complete the mandatory certification process.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"beneficiaries cite consistent failures with facial recognition and one-time pins (OTPs).","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The system just kept on loading and never went through to my profile. I have been struggling for three weeks","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Then also indicated that the Department of Home Affairs is not available to verify my particulars","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"IOL reported that beneficiaries nationwide contacted it to say they could not complete the certification and cited failures with facial recognition and one-time PINs. One pensioner said the site kept loading without reaching their profile for three weeks, and reported a one-time PIN rejection and a message that Home Affairs was not available to verify their particulars.","causal_attribution":"Unquantified accounts relayed by IOL. The pensioner who described the loading failure and the one-time PIN rejection did not describe a facial recognition failure."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The Sassa portals are working as evidenced by the number of clients who have accessed the online services.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"As of April 16, 2026, 13,644 (88%) of the 15,499 unique clients who accessed the online verification services via the client portal were successfully verified","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"However, Sassa admitted the system has been working intermittently.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A SASSA spokesperson told IOL the portals are working and that, as of 16 April 2026, 13,644 (88%) of 15,499 unique clients who accessed the online verification services via the client portal were successfully verified. IOL reports SASSA admitted the system had been working intermittently.","causal_attribution":"SASSA's own figures and account, which were not independently verified. The figures count clients who accessed online verification and do not report how many failed the facial step."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"SASSA said most non-verification cases were driven by beneficiaries failing to respond to notifications, not completing life certification, or unsuccessful facial recognition attempts on online platforms.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"In such cases, beneficiaries are redirected to fingerprint biometric verification at local offices.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"The agency said it had recorded 7,779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"The department attributed facial verification issues to poor lighting, unstable connectivity, or missing biometric records at the Department of Home Affairs.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"The agency said it had recorded 7 779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"IOL's 24 May 2026 report on a parliamentary reply says SASSA said most non-verification cases were driven by beneficiaries who did not respond to notifications, did not complete life certification, or had unsuccessful facial recognition attempts on online platforms, and that such beneficiaries are redirected to fingerprint verification at local offices. IOL says SASSA had recorded 7,779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system and that the department attributed facial verification issues to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing biometric records at the Department of Home Affairs.","causal_attribution":"SASSA's account relayed by two outlets that share one reporter and one reply, so they are one chain. The reports do not date the complaints or say whether they concern eLife Certification or earlier online facial verification, and do not say how many were repeat complaints."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"with 67,868 grants suspended in the third quarter alone","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"a grant is suspended 2 months after a beneficiary was notified to conduct a review and has not yet done so","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"around 70 000 grants have been suspended due to beneficiaries failing to come forward for review","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"}],"assertion":"The parliamentary reply reported 67,868 grants suspended in the third quarter (the reports do not identify the period) under a rule that a grant is suspended two months after a beneficiary was notified to conduct a review and has not yet done so. A Parliament committee statement of 5 February 2026 reported around 70,000 grants suspended for beneficiaries failing to come forward for review.","causal_attribution":"The suspension figures are context. No inspected report says how many suspensions followed a facial verification failure, and the committee statement predates the eLife implementation date reported by IOL."}],"effects":[{"label":"Pensioners reported repeated failures of the facial recognition step in a mandatory online life certification, with a stated risk of payment delay or grant suspension if it is not completed","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"},{"label":"SASSA reported delays, disruptions and long queues at its offices after beneficiaries could not use the self-service certification portal, which SASSA attributed to interfaces with other departments (its statement does not mention facial recognition)","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/2026-04-23-sassa-elife-certification-portal-beneficiaries-report-ongoing-glitches-despite-agency-denials/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"iol-elife-glitches-report"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/sassa-self-service-system-restored-following-earlier-challenges-10-apr-2026","kind":"official_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"sassa-10-apr-2026-statement"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/2026-05-24-sassas-biometric-rollout-leaves-thousands-without-grants-amid-fraud-crackdown/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"parliamentary-reply-iol-report"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://dailyvoice.co.za/news/2026-05-25-sassas-face-palm-facial-recognition-tech-linked-to-the-suspension-of-68-000-grants/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"parliamentary-reply-iol-report"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://www.parliament.gov.za/index.php/press-releases/media-statement-committee-notes-grant-reviews-are-necessary-protect-poor-and-public-funds","kind":"official_statement","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"parliament-committee-5-feb-2026-statement"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["public_services","accessibility"],"unknowns":["The reports do not say how many of the 67,868 grant suspensions (third quarter, period not identified) followed unsuccessful facial recognition. The suspensions are governed by a review non-response rule, and a committee statement dated 5 February 2026 already reported around 70,000 suspensions before the eLife implementation date reported by IOL.","The 30 March 2026 implementation date comes from IOL only. The SASSA statements read do not give a start date.","SASSA's statement refers to facial recognition on online platforms in general. Neither IOL 24 May 2026 nor Daily Voice 25 May 2026 mentions eLife Certification, and IOL places the reply within a biometric verification rollout dated from September 2025 (compulsory biometric enrolment for new applicants, verified at local offices). Whether the 7,779 complaints and the redirections to fingerprint checks concern eLife Certification at all is not stated. Facial photo verification through the same eKYC system for Social Relief of Distress grant applicants was reported earlier (Biometric Update, August 2024, and Corruption Watch, January 2025) and is a separate earlier deployment that this case does not cover.","Whether the pensioner couple later completed certification, or whether any grant was delayed or suspended, is not reported.","The cause of the couple's failed attempts is not established (lighting, connectivity, missing Home Affairs records, or the facial matching itself).","SASSA said on 10 April 2026 that the problem was resolved, and IOL reported failures continuing on 23 April 2026. The 88% success figure is SASSA's and was not checked.","The pensioner accounts come from one outlet (IOL). A Joburg ETC article of the same date relays it and adds nothing independent.","IOL page dates were taken from the URLs (23 April and 24 May 2026) because the page bodies show only relative ages."],"geography":{"basis":"IOL reports social grant recipients across South Africa struggling with the portal, and the SASSA statement and parliamentary reply concern the South African Social Security Agency's beneficiaries.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["ZA"],"affected_person_countries":["ZA"]},"publication":{"basis":"IOL (23 April and 24 May 2026), SASSA's 10 April 2026 statement on gov.za, Daily Voice and a Parliament committee statement were read in full. SASSA's and IOL's accounts are attributed and left at reported, and the pensioners' failures come from one outlet. The pensioners are not named. No inspected report attributes any grant suspension to facial verification failures.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The sources describe a facial recognition step in SASSA's eLife Certification portal, which uses biometric verification through the eKYC system and integration with Home Affairs systems, and IOL's 24 May 2026 report of a parliamentary reply refers to SASSA's electronic facial biometric system without saying whether it is the eLife portal. The vendor and model are not identified. The department attributes facial verification problems to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing Home Affairs biometric records, and a SASSA spokesperson says the portals work with intermittent downtime, so the cause of any individual failure is not established.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about"]},"name":"South Africa: pensioners report repeated failures of the facial recognition step in SASSA's eLife certification portal, and SASSA reports disruptions and office queues","summary":"The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) introduced an online eLife Certification (life certification) for grant beneficiaries that uses biometric verification through its electronic Know Your Client (eKYC) system. IOL reports the certification was implemented on 30 March 2026. SASSA says beneficiaries who do not complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension. On 10 April 2026 SASSA apologised to beneficiaries who could not access the portal, said system glitches linked to interfaces with other departments had caused delays, disruptions and long queues at its offices, and said the problem was resolved. On 23 April 2026 IOL reported that a pensioner couple said they had tried the facial recognition option 22 times since 2 April without success, and that beneficiaries nationwide told IOL they could not complete the certification, citing failures with facial recognition and one-time PINs, with one pensioner also reporting a message that Home Affairs was not available to verify their particulars. A SASSA spokesperson said the portals work and that 13,644 (88%) of the 15,499 unique clients who accessed the online verification services by 16 April were verified, and IOL reports SASSA admitted the system has been working intermittently. In a May 2026 report on a parliamentary reply, IOL said SASSA stated that unsuccessful facial recognition attempts on online platforms were among the causes of non-verification (those beneficiaries are redirected to fingerprint checks at local offices) and that it had recorded 7,779 complaints linked to its electronic facial biometric system. The department attributed facial verification issues to poor lighting, unstable connectivity or missing biometric records at Home Affairs. Neither May report mentions the eLife portal, and IOL places the figures within a biometric verification rollout that it dates from September 2025. The reports do not say how many grants were suspended because of facial verification failures.","incidentDate":"2026-03-30","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2026-04-23","aiSystem":"Facial recognition step in SASSA's eLife Certification portal (biometric verification through the eKYC system, integrated with Home Affairs systems). Vendor and model not identified in the sources.","aiProduct":"SASSA eLife facial verification","aiCompany":"South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), deployer","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["other_material_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"SASSA said glitches caused delays, disruptions and long queues at its offices, and a pensioner couple told IOL they had tried the facial recognition step 22 times since 2 April without success. SASSA warned that beneficiaries who do not complete life certification as directed may face payment delays or suspension. No inspected report says that either pensioner's grant was delayed or suspended.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"IOL reports one pensioner couple (two people) who said the facial recognition step failed 22 times. IOL says it was inundated with emails and calls from beneficiaries nationwide and SASSA recorded 7,779 complaints, but complaints are not people and the number of beneficiaries who failed facial verification is not reported, so no larger count is recorded. The 67,868 grant suspensions are not counted because no inspected report attributes them to facial verification.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/2026-04-23-sassa-elife-certification-portal-beneficiaries-report-ongoing-glitches-despite-agency-denials/","primarySourceLabel":"IOL (23 Apr 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:16:13.146866+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:54.03839+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"id":"2026-us-uk-hachette-cancels-shy-girl-novel-after-ai-authorship-allegations","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"The Hachette Book Group said Thursday that it has canceled the publication of horror novel","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"where it was first released in November.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The US release of a horror novel has been cancelled by its publisher over concerns that AI was used to help write it.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Wildfire (in the UK) have decided to no longer continue publishing their edition","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"The title has also been removed from online retailers including Amazon","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"But it took until last Thursday for Hachette to pull the book from its website","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"March 19 , the New York Times landed a big story about allegations that a hyped horror novel called Shy Girl","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"Hachette Book Group said on Thursday 19 March 2026 that it had cancelled the US publication of the horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard (Orbit imprint) and would not continue the UK edition (Wildfire imprint, first released in November 2025). The Guardian reports the title was also removed from online retailers including Amazon.","causal_attribution":"The cancellation is Hachette’s own announcement, relayed by several outlets. Sources link it to allegations of AI use and to a review by the publisher. Whether AI was in fact used is unresolved (claim c7)."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"readers on platforms such as Goodreads and Reddit had questioned whether sections of the text bore hallmarks of AI-generated prose.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"A widely shared Reddit thread drew hundreds of comments","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"amassed more than 1.2m views","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"one reviewer on the GoodReads website claimed the book appeared to be \"written by ChatGPT\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"In January, a Reddit post from a user who claimed to be a book editor generated significant discussion around","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"published online on January 19 by","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"Readers alleged online that the novel’s text read as AI-generated: reviews on Goodreads, a widely shared Reddit thread, a January Reddit post by a user who said they were a book editor, and a YouTube video posted in January 2026 that had more than 1.2 million views.","causal_attribution":"Online opinion and analysis by readers. It is not evidence about who produced the text. Sources differ on when the earliest accusations appeared (see unknowns)."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"78.4 percent of the document is AI Generated","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"I soon confirmed this with two other services.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"Originality and GPTZero","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"found evidence that 78 percent of the book is AI-generated","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"that large parts of Shy Girl appeared to show patterns characteristic of A.I.-generated writing.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"to use these reports only for guidance, not as proof of guilt","relation":"context","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"A.I. detection software, while improving, has been shown to be fallible at best","relation":"context","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"AI-detection results were reported as part of the case. A publishing consultant’s first-person account says a copy of the UK edition scored 78.4 percent AI-generated on the Pangram detector, that two other detection services gave confirming results, and that the consultant brought the findings to the New York Times. Futurism reports that the CEO of Pangram ran a test and found evidence that 78 percent of the book is AI-generated. Slate reports that the New York Times verified claims that large parts of the book appeared to show patterns characteristic of AI-generated writing.","causal_attribution":"Detector scores describe statistical patterns in a text. They do not establish who produced the text or whether a generative model was used. Detector reliability is contested in the sources, and the New York Times article that carried the verification was not read."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"following an investigation into the origins of the book.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the publisher confirmed it had halted publication after an internal review.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Although the publisher claimed the decision came after a thorough review of the text","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"lengthy investigation in recent weeks","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"remains committed to protecting original creative expression and storytelling","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Hachette said its decision followed a review or investigation of the book and cited its commitment to protecting original creative expression and storytelling. The Wall Street Journal report says the cancellation followed an investigation into the origins of the book, and Futurism relays a Hachette statement to the Journal that both its US and UK imprints conducted a lengthy investigation in recent weeks.","causal_attribution":"Publisher statements about its own process. The sources inspected do not report what the review or investigation found about AI use."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"concerns the day before the announcement.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"shortly after the New York Times approached the publisher with evidence of AI use.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"one Times article said that Hachette pulled the book within a day of first notification by the Times","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"The New York Times asked Hachette about the AI concerns the day before the announcement, and the cancellation followed shortly after the Times approached the publisher with evidence of AI use. A consultant’s first-person account says a Times article reported that Hachette pulled the book within a day of first notification by the Times.","causal_attribution":"Timing reported by outlets that rely on the New York Times report, which was not read directly. The sequence shows what preceded the announcement and does not show what Hachette concluded."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"has denied using AI to write the book","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"hired to edit the original self-published version of the novel had used AI.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"my mental health is at an all time low and my name is ruined for something I didn","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Ballard has denied personally using AI to write the novel.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"my mental health is at an all time low and my name is ruined for something I didn","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"pursuing legal action","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"did not personally use AI","relation":"supports","source_id":"s9"},{"locator":"please do your research on editors before trusting them with your work","relation":"supports","source_id":"s9"}],"assertion":"Ballard denied personally using AI to write the novel in an email to the New York Times and, per The Independent, in an email to the Wall Street Journal, and told the New York Times that an acquaintance hired to edit the original self-published version had used AI. Ballard wrote: \"This controversy has changed my life in many ways and my mental health is at an all time low and my name is ruined for something I didn’t even personally do\", and said legal action was being pursued.","causal_attribution":"The author’s own statements about the author’s own conduct and its effects. Ballard spoke publicly under that name in emails to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal quoted by several outlets. The acquaintance is not named in the sources and no response from that person is reported."},{"id":"c7","status":"disputed","evidence":[{"locator":"found evidence that 78 percent of the book is AI-generated","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"78.4 percent of the document is AI Generated","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"has denied using AI to write the book","relation":"contradicts","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"A.I. detection software, while improving, has been shown to be fallible at best","relation":"context","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"Whether, by whom and to what extent generative AI produced the text of the published novel is disputed. Detector results and reader analyses point to substantial AI-generated prose. Ballard denies personal use and attributes any AI use to a hired editor. No source inspected reports the editor’s account, an independent verification of authorship, or a finding by the publisher.","causal_attribution":"Causal attribution of the consequence to AI use rests on allegations and detector output that the author disputes. The consequence (cancellation) is a publisher decision responding to those allegations."}],"effects":[{"label":"Publisher cancelled the US edition and discontinued the UK edition of the author’s novel after allegations that it was AI-generated","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"Author reports damage to name and severely worsened mental health after the controversy","claim_id":"c6","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.wsj.com/business/media/publisher-pulls-shy-girl-horror-novel-after-ai-allegations-c7944702","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"wsj-shy-girl-report"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y9d44jj24o","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"nyt-shy-girl-report"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/20/hachette-horror-novel-shy-girl-suspected-ai-use-mia-ballard","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"nyt-shy-girl-report"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/21/publisher-pulls-horror-novel-shy-girl-over-ai-concerns","kind":"trade_press","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"nyt-shy-girl-report"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/novel-pulled-author-accused-ai","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"nyt-shy-girl-report"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://slate.com/culture/2026/03/shy-girl-mia-ballard-novel-a-i-book-horror-reddit-hachette-canceled.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"slate-shy-girl-reporting"},{"id":"s7","url":"https://thewalrus.ca/new-york-times-ai-generated-shy-girl-mia-ballard/","kind":"first_person_account","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"consultant-first-person-account"},{"id":"s8","url":"https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/100037-while-ai-discourse-rages-publishing-has-more-questions-than-answers.html","kind":"trade_press","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"nyt-shy-girl-report"},{"id":"s9","url":"https://www.aol.com/articles/horror-novel-reportedly-pulled-publication-133355085.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"wsj-shy-girl-report"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["work"],"unknowns":["Whether generative AI produced any of the text, who used it and to what extent is unresolved. The author denies personal use and attributes any AI use to a hired editor. No source inspected reports that editor’s account, an independent authorship check, or what Hachette found.","The Wall Street Journal page was read as a truncated Wayback extract (three paragraphs, paywall). The New York Times article that first reported the story could not be read (HTTP 403 live and in Wayback captures). Statements attributed to the Times are read through BBC, The Guardian, TechCrunch, Futurism and Publishers Weekly.","Sources differ on when the first online accusations appeared. The Guardian says questions began in early 2026, and Futurism dates a Reddit post to January. Futurism also says accusations have swirled around the book since its self-published run last year, Slate says the rumblings began in January and even earlier, and a first-person account by a publishing consultant says the first accusations appeared online five or six months before Hachette’s July 2025 acquisition announcement and that a Reddit thread was a year old in early February 2026. No inspected source reports a consequence for the author from those earlier accusations. This record dates the event to the publisher’s decision on 19 March 2026, the first reported consequence for the author.","Detector reliability and the tested copy are contested. A Wall Street Journal opinion column on the reliability of the Pangram report was not read, and a summary of it on Wikipedia is not cited.","The author says legal action is being pursued. The target and any filing are not established by the sources inspected. A newsletter’s report of a $1 million lawsuit against Hachette had no filing or second source and is not relied on.","The US publication date is reported differently (April in BBC and Slate, 19 May in the Wall Street Journal). UK sales are reported as about 1,800 (Guardian, citing NielsenIQ) and almost 2,000 (BBC) copies. Neither is used as a harm count.","Whether existing UK copies were withdrawn or destroyed is not consistently reported. The Guardian says the title was removed from online retailers and would no longer be distributed in the UK.","The accusers on Reddit and YouTube, the consultant and the hired editor are not described individually beyond their role in the reporting."],"geography":{"basis":"Hachette cancelled the US release and discontinued the UK edition (BBC). The BBC describes the author as a US author, and The Independent, citing a Google Books author profile, reports a US residence. No court is involved in the sources inspected.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US","GB"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"The publisher’s cancellation, its stated review, the online allegations, the AI-detector results and the author’s denial were read from the Wall Street Journal (truncated), BBC, The Guardian, TechCrunch, Futurism, Slate, Publishers Weekly, The Independent (via AOL) and a consultant’s first-person account. The author is named because the author spoke publicly under that name in emails to two newspapers. Every AI-related claim is attributed and AI involvement is recorded as disputed. The event is dated to the publisher’s decision on 19 March 2026, the first reported consequence for the author. Earlier reader accusations are recorded as context.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"AI-text detectors (Pangram, and per one first-person account Originality and GPTZero) scored the UK edition as largely AI-generated, and readers alleged the prose showed hallmarks of AI. The author denies personally using AI and says an acquaintance hired to edit the self-published version used it. Hachette cited a review of the text and its stance on original creative expression and did not state, in the sources inspected, what the review found. Detector reliability is contested.","status":"disputed"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"US and UK: Hachette cancels the US edition of the novel Shy Girl and discontinues the UK edition after allegations it was AI-generated, with the author denying personal use of AI","summary":"On 19 March 2026 Hachette Book Group said it had cancelled the US publication of the horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard (Orbit imprint) and would not continue the UK edition (Wildfire imprint, first released in November 2025). Reports say the decision followed an investigation by Hachette and came a day after the New York Times asked the publisher about online allegations that the text was largely AI-generated. The allegations came from readers on Goodreads, Reddit and YouTube and from AI-detector results, including a 78.4 percent AI-generated score on the Pangram detector that a publishing consultant says two other services confirmed. Ballard denied personally using AI in emails to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and told the New York Times that an acquaintance hired to edit the original self-published version used AI. Ballard wrote that \"my name is ruined\" and \"my mental health is at an all time low\", and said legal action was being pursued. Hachette’s public statements cite its commitment to original creative expression. The sources inspected do not report what its investigation found. Whether AI generated any of the text, and who used it, is unresolved.","incidentDate":"2026-03-19","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-03-19","aiSystem":"Alleged generative-AI text production in the novel (the author denies personal use and attributes any AI use to a hired editor), and AI-text detectors (Pangram, and per one account Originality and GPTZero) whose scores were used to allege AI authorship","aiProduct":"Pangram AI-text detector","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"disputed","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["professional_harm","reputational_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Hachette cancelled the US publication and discontinued the UK edition of the author’s novel. The author wrote to the New York Times that \"my mental health is at an all time low and my name is ruined for something I didn’t even personally do\" (relayed by BBC and The Guardian). The author denies personally using AI.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"disputed","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person, the author, reports harm (cancelled publication, damage to name and severely worsened mental health). The hired editor, readers who bought the book and the publisher are not counted as harmed persons.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/mar/20/hachette-horror-novel-shy-girl-suspected-ai-use-mia-ballard","primarySourceLabel":"The Guardian (20 Mar 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:16:09.707267+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:57.941496+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"id":"2026-us-meta-26-employees-sue-alleging-ai-assisted-may-layoff-selection-penalized-protected-leave","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"OAKLAND DIVISION","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Filed 07/13/26","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Plaintiffs initiated this lawsuit on July 13, 2026, bringing claims against Meta","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"A group of 26 Meta employees has sued the company, claiming it used artificial intelligence systems to select people for layoffs, disproportionately targeting those on medical, parental or family leave.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"On 13 July 2026 twenty-six anonymous plaintiffs (Does 1 through 26) filed a complaint against Meta Platforms, Inc. in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Oakland division, alleging employment discrimination in the May 2026 reduction in force.","causal_attribution":"The filing of the complaint is documented by the court record. The complaint establishes only the plaintiffs’ allegations."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"artificial-intelligence-assisted systems to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"algorithmic productivity scoring drawn from keystroke, screen-content, mouse,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The parties dispute whether Meta utilized AI in deciding to terminate plaintiffs’","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"They claim that Meta used a number of internal AI-assisted systems to score and rank employees on a termination list.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"The complaint alleges, on information and belief, that Meta used a set of internal AI-assisted systems to score, rank and select employees for the termination list: the Metamate internal large-language-model assistant, employee-trained \"second brain\" agents, keystroke and other activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration.","causal_attribution":"These are the plaintiffs’ allegations, pleaded on information and belief and supported by plaintiff declarations that were not inspected (they are quoted in the complaint and the order). Meta disputes them (claim c4). The news reports and the court order restate the complaint and are one reporting chain with it."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"protected-leave-takers or accommodation-seekers for individualized human review. Meta","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"On information and belief, Meta did not neutralize any of the foregoing inputs for","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Plaintiffs are twenty-six current and former Meta employees, each of whom Meta","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"selected for separation in the RIF, and each of whom","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"About half the plaintiffs had taken leave for caregiving or pregnancy-related reasons.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"}],"assertion":"The complaint alleges that the inputs to these systems cannot be accumulated by an employee on protected medical, family or parental leave, that Meta did not neutralise them for protected leave, and that employees who took protected leave were therefore disproportionately selected for layoff. It states that each plaintiff was selected for separation in the reduction in force and had, within the 24 months before it, taken, requested or been approved for protected leave, or requested or received a disability accommodation.","causal_attribution":"Allegation of the plaintiffs. The court found on 17 July 2026 only serious questions going to the merits and no likelihood of success on that record (claim c5). Whether any AI system affected any plaintiff’s selection is unresolved."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"selection decisions in the RIF were “made by human","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"promotion history over a defined period. There was no AI-","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"was selected based on leave status, disability, or any other protected characteristic,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"“selection decision [was] made by ‘AI.’” Id. ¶ 11.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Selection decisions were made by human business leaders","relation":"supports","source_id":"s9"},{"locator":"defined period. There was no AI-assisted “scoring” or “ranking” related to employee","relation":"supports","source_id":"s9"},{"locator":"guidance does not permit AI adoption and usage metrics to be used as negative factors in","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"performance reviews in 2025 or as selection criteria in the RIF.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Meta denies the allegations. A Meta spokesperson said workforce management and organisational decisions were made by people, not AI. In declarations filed by a Meta human-resources director, Meta states that selection decisions were made by human business leaders using documented neutral criteria, that no AI-assisted scoring or ranking of employee performance was used, that no plaintiff was selected on the basis of leave status or disability, and that no selection decision was made by AI.","causal_attribution":"Meta’s statements and declarations about its own process. They are a party account and had been tested only through briefing and court hearings (claims c5 and c7), not in discovery."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"described below, the TRO is DENIED.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"The parties dispute whether Meta utilized AI in deciding to terminate plaintiffs’","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"plaintiffs have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits, but rather a “serious question[]”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Loss of health care, employment, protected leave, and unvested restricted stock units (“RSUs”) are","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Loss of immigration status is different. Four of the plaintiffs have employment-based,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"they were not in the rooms where it happened.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"On 17 July 2026 the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order. The order records that the parties dispute whether Meta used AI in deciding to terminate the plaintiffs, finds serious questions going to the merits but no shown likelihood of success on that record, finds that loss of health care, employment, protected leave and unvested equity can be remedied in arbitration, and treats the possible loss of immigration status for four plaintiffs with Meta-sponsored visas as a potentially irreparable harm that needed more information.","causal_attribution":"A court order establishes what the court ruled and recorded. It does not establish that AI was or was not used in the selection."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"On May 20, 2026, Meta began notifying the selected employees by email, beginning with","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"finalized on or about July 22, 2026 (and on or about August 20, 2026 for New York","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"laid off on May 20, 2026.” Complaint (“Compl.”) [Dkt. No. 1] ¶ 45 (the “mass reduction in force”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Though they have been notified of their layoffs, all 26 remain employed by Meta, with separations set to begin July 22.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s6"},{"locator":"Meta in May notified nearly 8,000 employees, or about 10% of its global workforce, that they were losing their jobs","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"Laid-off workers remain on the payroll but lost access to Meta systems on May 20","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"}],"assertion":"Meta began notifying employees selected in the reduction in force on 20 May 2026 (about 8,000 employees, roughly 10 percent of its workforce). The complaint says the plaintiffs were notified of their selection from that date, and that separations were scheduled for about 22 July 2026 (later for some plaintiffs). Meta said in court filings that laid-off workers stayed on the payroll but lost access to Meta systems on 20 May.","causal_attribution":"The notification date and the scheduled separation dates come from the complaint and Meta court filings as relayed by Reuters. The sources inspected do not report whether each separation took place on its scheduled date, although Courthouse News called the plaintiffs former employees on 24 August 2026."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Hearing on Motion for Preliminary Injunction conducted via videoconference. The Court","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"summarizes tentative. Argument of counsel heard. Motion taken under submission; written order","relation":"supports","source_id":"s5"},{"locator":"I have a record I have to deal with and the record at the moment does not persuade me of the merits","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"categorical denial of any impact of AI in the termination process","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"},{"locator":"whether what plaintiffs think happened, happened","relation":"supports","source_id":"s8"}],"assertion":"The court held a hearing on the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion on 24 August 2026, heard argument and took the motion under submission with a written order to follow. Courthouse News reports that the judge said the record at that time did not persuade the judge of the merits, that the plaintiffs’ evidence raised some potential questions about Meta’s categorical denial of any impact of AI in the termination process, and that the case turns on whether what plaintiffs think happened, happened.","causal_attribution":"The minute entry documents that the hearing occurred and the motion was taken under submission. The judge’s remarks are reported by one news outlet and the transcript was not inspected. No written ruling on the preliminary injunction was found as of 29 September 2026."},{"id":"c8","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"and only Plaintiff Doe 20, hereby voluntarily dismisses","relation":"supports","source_id":"s10"},{"locator":"remain parties and continue to prosecute this action","relation":"supports","source_id":"s10"},{"locator":"Doe 20 was voluntarily dismissed from this action on August 3, 2026 pursuant to Federal","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"is made on behalf of Doe 20, and no relief is sought on Doe 20’s behalf.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"One plaintiff (Doe 20) voluntarily dismissed all of that plaintiff’s claims without prejudice on 3 August 2026 (Dkt. 33), and the notice states that Does 1 through 19 and 21 through 26 remain parties. No reason is given in the notice.","causal_attribution":"A filing by the plaintiffs’ counsel records the dismissal. It does not say whether that plaintiff was selected in the reduction in force or why the dismissal was made."},{"id":"c9","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"They recognize that their claims must be arbitrated, and they have initiated arbitration proceedings","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"with the American Arbitration Association (AAA). Here, they seek a temporary restraining order:","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"while they pursue their claims in private arbitration","relation":"supports","source_id":"s7"},{"locator":"from this Court only the status-quo-preserving provisional relief that Meta’s own","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"G. Reserve to the arbitral forum all relief on the merits, including but not limited to","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The 17 July 2026 order records that the plaintiffs recognize their claims must be arbitrated and that they have initiated arbitration proceedings with the American Arbitration Association. The complaint says the plaintiffs seek from the court only status-quo-preserving provisional relief pending an independent audit of the selection process and arbitration of the merits, and it reserves merits relief such as reinstatement, back pay and damages to the arbitral forum.","causal_attribution":"The order records the plaintiffs’ own statement about their arbitration filings. The arbitration itself is confidential and its progress is unknown."}],"effects":[{"label":"Employees on or after protected leave allegedly disproportionately selected for layoff by an AI-assisted process that did not account for leave (disputed by Meta)","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"},{"label":"Plaintiffs notified of selection for termination on 20 May 2026, with separations scheduled from 22 July 2026 and possible loss of health coverage, unvested equity and (for four plaintiffs) work-visa status","claim_id":"c6","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.1.0.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"meta-complaint"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.25.0.pdf","kind":"court_order","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"ndcal-court-record"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.42.1_1.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"meta-court-declarations"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.46.0.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"ndcal-court-record"},{"id":"s5","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.49.0.pdf","kind":"court_record","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"ndcal-court-record"},{"id":"s6","url":"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/26-meta-workers-sue-ai-aided-layoffs-medical-family-leave/","kind":"wire_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"meta-complaint"},{"id":"s7","url":"https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jul/17/us-judge-wont-block-meta-from-laying-off-workers-w/","kind":"wire_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"reuters-tro-coverage"},{"id":"s8","url":"https://www.courthousenews.com/meta-workers-claiming-ai-fired-them-unlikely-to-see-relief/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"courthouse-news-hearing"},{"id":"s9","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.31.0.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"meta-court-declarations"},{"id":"s10","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.33.0.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"ndcal-court-record"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["work","health"],"unknowns":["Whether any AI system scored, ranked or selected any plaintiff is unresolved. The complaint pleads it on information and belief. Meta denies it in declarations. No discovery had occurred in the sources inspected, and the judge said on 17 July 2026 that plaintiffs were not in the rooms where the selections happened.","The sources inspected do not show how many people beyond the plaintiffs were selected because of leave, or how many of the roughly 8,000 laid-off employees were scored by any AI-assisted system. Only the plaintiffs are counted as reported harmed.","The order on the preliminary injunction motion (argued 24 August 2026, taken under submission) had not been found by 29 September 2026. The hearing remarks were read only through one news report and the transcript was not inspected.","Whether each plaintiff’s separation took place on its scheduled date (22 July 2026 for most, later for some) is not stated in the sources inspected. Reuters and CBS/AP describe the plaintiffs as still employed in July, and Courthouse News called them former employees on 24 August 2026.","One plaintiff (Doe 20) was voluntarily dismissed on 3 August 2026 and no reason is stated. The affected count therefore uses 25.","The complaint and declarations contain individual medical, pregnancy and immigration details. They are anonymised in the public copies and are deliberately not described here.","Reuters and WSJ pages for the initial filing could not be read (HTTP 401). Reuters coverage of the 17 July ruling was read through a Spokesman-Review copy. The Law.com article was behind a subscription wall and was not cited.","The complaint alleges that data captured by a separate Meta employee-monitoring program (the Model Capability Initiative) supplied inputs to the selection process, and Meta denies that AI was used in the selection. That program’s own privacy and security consequences are a different event, recorded as 2026-meta-mci-us-employee-keystroke-and-screen-capture-for-ai-training-then-internal-data-exposure, and are not part of this record."],"geography":{"basis":"The complaint states that the plaintiffs worked in California, Illinois, Washington, New York, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and Florida and the suit is in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Meta also notified employees in other countries in the same reduction in force, but no plaintiff outside the US is described.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"The complaint, the court order denying the temporary restraining order, two Meta declarations, the plaintiffs’ notice of dismissal of one plaintiff and the hearing minute entry were read from the court record (CourtListener copies), with CBS/AP, Reuters and Courthouse News reports. Every AI-related statement is attributed. The plaintiffs are anonymous in the record and are not described individually. Meta denies that AI made or informed any selection decision and the court has not resolved the dispute.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The complaint alleges, on information and belief, that Meta used internal AI-assisted systems (Metamate, second-brain agents, activity-monitoring scoring, AI-token-usage dashboards, algorithmic ranking and calibration) to score, rank and select employees for the 20 May 2026 termination list. Meta’s declarations say selection decisions were made by human business leaders and that there was no AI-assisted scoring or ranking related to employee performance, and the court described the declarations as saying Meta did not use AI in any way with respect to the RIF. The court recorded that the parties dispute whether Meta used AI in deciding to terminate the plaintiffs and found on 17 July 2026 that the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success on the current record. On 24 August 2026 the judge said the plaintiffs’ evidence raised some potential questions about Meta’s categorical denial. No discovery had tested Meta’s account in the sources inspected.","status":"disputed"},"person_relations":["made_decision_about","made_claim_about"]},"name":"US: 26 Meta employees sue alleging an AI-assisted May 2026 layoff selection penalized workers on protected leave, Meta says people made the decisions","summary":"On 20 May 2026 Meta began notifying about 8,000 employees (roughly 10 percent of its workforce) that they had been selected for layoff. On 13 July 2026 twenty-six anonymous employees who had taken or requested medical, pregnancy, parental or family leave, or a disability accommodation, sued Meta in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint alleges, on information and belief, that Meta used internal AI-assisted systems (including the Metamate assistant, keystroke and activity monitoring, AI-token-usage dashboards and algorithmic performance ranking) to score, rank and select employees, and that these inputs could not accumulate during protected leave, so plaintiffs on leave were disproportionately selected. Meta says workforce decisions were made by people, not AI, and that no selection decision was made by AI. On 17 July 2026 the court denied a temporary restraining order, recording that the parties dispute whether Meta used AI in the terminations and finding serious questions on the merits but no shown likelihood of success. One plaintiff was voluntarily dismissed on 3 August 2026. The preliminary injunction motion was argued on 24 August 2026 and taken under submission. The plaintiffs are pursuing their merits claims in arbitration and the allegations are unproven.","incidentDate":"2026-05-20","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-07-14","aiSystem":"Meta internal AI-assisted systems alleged in the complaint: the Metamate internal LLM assistant, employee-trained \"second brain\" agents, keystroke and activity-monitoring productivity scoring, AI-token-usage dashboards and AI-assisted performance calibration (Meta denies AI was used in selecting employees for the layoff)","aiProduct":"Meta internal AI systems (reported)","aiCompany":"Meta Platforms, Inc.","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"disputed","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The complaint alleges that 26 employees were selected for termination in Meta’s May 2026 reduction in force through an AI-assisted process that penalised protected leave, with separations scheduled from 22 July 2026 and asserted losses of employer-subsidised health coverage, unvested equity and, for four plaintiffs, work-visa status. Meta denies that AI was used in the selections. The court found the alleged harms other than immigration status remediable in arbitration and has not decided the merits.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"disputed","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":25,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"The complaint states that each of 26 plaintiffs was selected for separation in the May 2026 reduction in force. One plaintiff was voluntarily dismissed on 3 August 2026 without a stated reason, so 25 active plaintiffs are counted as a documented minimum. The roughly 8,000 other employees notified in the reduction in force are not counted because no source ties their selection to the alleged AI process.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.474171/gov.uscourts.cand.474171.1.0.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"Complaint, Does 1 through 26 v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (N.D. Cal., filed 13 Jul 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:16:06.345461+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:57.733761+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"id":"2026-bengaluru-based-employer-reports-firing-cook-after-home-ai-kitchen-monitor-flagged-fruit-taken","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"it monitors the kitchen when she's cooking and pings me the moment she takes anything. sends me weekly report.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"fn, using claude haiku 4.5 as the vision model.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"btw i run face detection locally and blur it before hitting llm","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"9:53 AM · Mar 1, 2026","relation":"context","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"the blurred video is fed into a vision AI model (currently Claude Haiku 4.5","relation":"context","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"a surveillance camera placed on top of a cupboard.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"In an X post dated 1 March 2026 the employer said he had deployed an \"AI roommate\" in his kitchen: a camera feeding an AI vision model (Claude Haiku 4.5 according to the post, with faces detected and blurred locally first) that monitors the kitchen while the cook works, alerts him when she takes anything and sends weekly reports.","causal_attribution":"The employer describes his own system. No independent source inspected the setup and the post carries no video of the alleged taking."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"3 apples gone, banana from Tuesday missing, caught her eating your blueberries on Thursday — 6-7 of them, standing at the fridge","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"A screenshot of his exchange with the AI chatbot shows that it not only kept track of the fruits she took for herself but also how often she washed her hands before cooking, how thoroughly she cleaned the kitchen, and how long she took to cook.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"It tracked how frequently she washed her hands before preparing meals, assessed how thoroughly she cleaned surfaces, and recorded the duration of her cooking sessions.","relation":"context","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Screenshots of the bot's chat quoted by Hindustan Times show it reporting a weekly tally of apples and a banana as gone, the cook eating blueberries at the fridge, and observations on hand-washing and cleaning.","causal_attribution":"The screenshots are the employer's. Whether the bot's log was accurate (for example whether the fruit was taken without permission) is not independently verified."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"and it caught her red handed","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"I caught her twice this week. just fired her","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"“I caught her twice this week. Just fired her,” he said","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"stated that he dismissed the cook after reviewing the footage gathered by the system","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"the Bengaluru techie said he had fired his cook for stealing.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The employer said the system caught the cook red handed taking fruit, that he caught her twice that week, and that he had just fired her.","causal_attribution":"The employer attributes the dismissal to what the monitor logged. The dismissal is reported only on the employer's own account and the cook's account is not reported."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"“I confronted her twice before setting this up. After two weeks, she was back to the same thing. I’m okay with her taking food with my permission, but stealing is a no.”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"“I put this up a couple of weeks ago.","relation":"context","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"In replies the employer said he had confronted the cook twice before setting up the system and would accept her taking food with his permission.","causal_attribution":"The employer's own explanation of his decision, quoted by India Today."}],"effects":[{"label":"Domestic cook dismissed by the employer after the home AI kitchen monitor's alerts, on the employer's own account","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://x.com/the2ndfloorguy/status/2028045991832690828","kind":"first_person_account","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"employer-x-post-2026-03-01"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/bengaluru-techie-uses-ai-to-monitor-cook-fires-her-for-stealing-fruit-caught-her-red-handed-101772419493861.html","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"employer-x-post-2026-03-01"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/bengaluru-techie-fires-his-cook-after-his-ai-roommate-caught-her-stealing-fruits-from-fridge-netizens-react-its-not-the-brag-/articleshow/128958235.cms","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"employer-x-post-2026-03-01"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/bengaluru-techie-pankaj-ai-roommate-helps-him-catch-cook-stealing-fruits-red-handed-2876429-2026-03-02","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"employer-x-post-2026-03-01"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["others_use"],"contexts":["work","privacy"],"unknowns":["The cook's account, and whether she disputes the alleged taking, is not reported by any inspected source.","Whether the cook knew of or agreed to the camera is not stated. The employer's replies imply she could see it and initially behaved carefully, which is unverified.","The exact day of the dismissal is not stated. The employer posted on 1 March 2026 that he had just fired her.","Whether the bot's log was accurate, or whether the fruit was taken without permission, is unverified. The post carries no video of the alleged taking.","The cook's pay appears only in the bot's own weekly summary as shown in a screenshot and is not independently sourced, so it is not recorded as a fact.","The Financial Express article listed by AIAAIC returned HTTP 403 and no archive copy was found, so it was not read. Hindustan Times said it had asked the employer for comment and no response was inspected.","No source reports later developments (re-employment, a complaint by the cook, or a labour-authority response) after 3 March 2026."],"geography":{"basis":"Hindustan Times, Economic Times and India Today describe the employer as Bengaluru-based. The sources do not separately state where the kitchen is.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["IN"],"affected_person_countries":["IN"]},"publication":{"basis":"The employer's X post (as displayed on the post page) and the Hindustan Times, Economic Times and India Today coverage were read. All four derive from the employer's post and screenshots and are one independence group. The dismissal and the bot's role are the employer's own account and stay at reported. The cook is not named and the employer is described by role only. The employer's handle and first name appear only inside source URLs (the X post and India Today).","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The employer's post says an AI system built on Claude Haiku 4.5 as the vision model monitored his kitchen, flagged fruit taken and produced weekly reports, and that he fired the cook after it caught her. Hindustan Times quotes screenshots of the bot's output. According to the employer the dismissal followed the bot's alerts, and the decision was the employer's. No independent source verified the bot's logs or the alleged taking, and the employer's account is the only source for the dismissal.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"India: Bengaluru-based employer says he fired his cook after a home AI kitchen monitor flagged fruit taken","summary":"On 1 March 2026 a Bengaluru-based technology professional posted on X that he had deployed a home \"AI roommate\" (a kitchen camera with an AI vision model, which he said was Claude Haiku 4.5) that monitored his cook while she cooked, alerted him when she took anything and sent weekly reports. The post said the system \"caught her red handed\", that he \"caught her twice this week\" and that he had \"just fired\" her. Screenshots quoted by Hindustan Times show the bot listing apples and a banana as gone, reporting the cook eating blueberries, and giving hand-washing and cleaning observations. All coverage derives from the employer's post: the post carries no video, the cook's account is not reported and the alleged taking is unverified.","incidentDate":"2026-03-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-03-01","aiSystem":"Home kitchen monitoring bot ('AI roommate') built by the employer: kitchen camera, local face blurring and Claude Haiku 4.5 as the vision model (per the employer)","aiProduct":"AI roommate kitchen monitor (reported)","aiCompany":"Anthropic (model provider, per the employer). The employer built the system.","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["professional_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The employer said in his own post that he fired the cook after the AI monitor flagged her taking fruit. The cook's account, the terms of the dismissal and any financial effect are not reported.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"The employer's post and the coverage refer to one cook who was dismissed and name no other affected person. The count rests on the employer's own account.","victimAgeRange":"unknown","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://x.com/the2ndfloorguy/status/2028045991832690828","primarySourceLabel":"Employer's X post (1 Mar 2026)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:15:59.571694+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:26.637589+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":"2026-chester-home-bargains-facewatch-shopper-told-to-leave-store","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"can you please put everything down and leave the shop now?","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"come up on our system called Facewatch as a shoplifter","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"he was told to leave his local Home Bargains store after the technology linked him to a theft, which he said had nothing to do with him.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"The 67-year-old said the incident, which happened in front of a group of people","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A 67-year-old shopper at a Home Bargains store in Chester was told by a member of staff to put everything down and leave, with the words that the shopper had come up on the store's Facewatch system as a shoplifter, in front of other people.","causal_attribution":"The shopper's account to the BBC and, separately, to the Guardian. Home Bargains declined to comment to the Guardian and the BBC states it had been approached for comment."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"popped into Home Bargains one February lunchtime","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"22 February 2026","relation":"context","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The Guardian says one February lunchtime. The year is inferred from the BBC report of 22 February 2026.","causal_attribution":"The Guardian gives the month and no year. The year is inferred from the BBC report of 22 February 2026 and the GB News report of 23 February 2026, which treat the event as recent. The Guardian gives February for another shopper in the same article where PA gives 27 January, so its month wording is not exact for that case."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"He contacted Facewatch, which sent him his photo with words claiming he had put items into a bag and stolen them.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"revealed he had been incorrectly associated with a shoplifting incident on a previous visit to the shop.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"should not have been on the system and his image and \"the associated record\" had been permanently removed.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The shopper contacted Facewatch, which sent a photo with words saying items had been put into a bag and stolen. A subject access request showed the shopper had been incorrectly associated with a shoplifting incident on a previous visit to the store. Facewatch said the shopper should not have been on the system and that the image and associated record were permanently removed.","causal_attribution":"The shopper's account and a Facewatch statement relayed by the BBC. The Guardian rests on a separate interview with the same shopper. Facewatch does not say how the shopper came to be on the system."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"These cases relate to human error in the way processes were carried out in-store, rather than any failure of Facewatch’s technology.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"These three errors are extremely rare cases","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"Home Bargains \"has now completed a full review of the incident\"","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Home Bargains and B&M declined to comment.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"we acted promptly as soon as the matter was brought to our attention","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"Home Bargains declined to comment when approached by GB News.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Facewatch's chief executive told the Guardian, in a statement about the three shoppers the article describes (this shopper is one), that the cases related to human error in the way processes were carried out in store and not to a failure of Facewatch technology. Facewatch told the BBC that Home Bargains had completed a full review of the incident. Home Bargains declined to comment.","causal_attribution":"Facewatch describing its own system and its customer's conduct. The Guardian statement refers to \"the matters referenced\" and \"these three errors\", and the article names three shoppers, of whom this shopper is one. The full review outcome was not published."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Home Bargains eventually issued him an apology and a £100 voucher as a “gesture of goodwill without admission”, on the condition that the details of the incident remain confidential.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"declined: “I just thought: ‘Really, you’re trying to buy my silence?’”","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Home Bargains later issued the shopper an apology and a 100 pound voucher as a goodwill gesture without admission, on condition that details of the incident remain confidential. The shopper declined the offer.","causal_attribution":"Guardian account, most likely from the shopper. Home Bargains declined to comment. No second chain was inspected."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"I thought I was going to be sick,","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"had left him feeling \"helpless\".","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"It was like I was guilty until proven innocent. It’s an awful feeling.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"He has called for an apology and said he just wanted \"to feel safe\" going into his local shops again.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"I’m hyper aware of cameras everywhere now","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The shopper reports feeling physically sick and helpless, describes an awful feeling of being treated as guilty until proven innocent, and says the shopper wants to feel safe going into local shops again and is now hyper aware of cameras.","causal_attribution":"The shopper's own statements to the BBC and the Guardian. No independent assessment was inspected."}],"effects":[{"label":"Told to leave a store in front of others as a shoplifter after being flagged on the Facewatch system, which Facewatch says should not have held a record for the shopper. Reported feeling physically sick, helplessness and ongoing unease about cameras.","claim_id":"c6","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0e56wjz6wo","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"shopper-account-and-facewatch-statements-home-bargains"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/03/guilty-until-proven-innocent-shoppers-falsely-identified-by-facial-recognition-struggle-to-clear-their-name","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"","independence_group":"shopper-account-and-facewatch-statements-home-bargains"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://www.gbnews.com/news/pensioner-kicked-out-home-bargains-facial-recognition-mistake-chester-news","kind":"news","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Rewrite of the BBC account with a separate Facewatch statement to GB News.","independence_group":"shopper-account-and-facewatch-statements-home-bargains"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["everyday_life"],"unknowns":["The visit is recorded at year precision. The Guardian says one February lunchtime with no year, and the year is inferred from the BBC (22 February 2026) and GB News (23 February 2026) reports. The Guardian gives February for another shopper where PA gives 27 January, so its month wording may be approximate.","Whether the error lay in the watchlist entry, the face match or the in-store handling is not established. Facewatch attributes it to human error in store processes and also says the shopper should not have been on its system.","The earlier shoplifting incident to which the shopper was incorrectly linked is not described in the inspected sources.","Home Bargains declined to comment, so no retailer account was inspected. The outcome of its full review is not published.","Whether the shopper's request to see CCTV footage from Home Bargains and the police was met is not reported.","The Guardian account of the apology, voucher and confidentiality condition has no second chain.","All inspected sources trace to the shopper's interviews and Facewatch statements, so no claim is corroborated."],"geography":{"basis":"The BBC places the store in Chester under its North West and Cheshire coverage and quotes a spokesperson for the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The BBC describes the shopper as of Chester.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["GB"],"affected_person_countries":["GB"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an ordinary adverse experience with an automated system. The BBC, Guardian and GB News reports were read in full from saved bodies and treated as one reporting chain (the shopper's interviews plus Facewatch statements). Claims stay at reported status and company statements are attributed. The shopper spoke publicly under their own name and is not named in this record.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-29"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Staff told the shopper that the shopper had come up on the store's Facewatch system as a shoplifter, and Facewatch sent the shopper a photo with a written theft allegation. Facewatch said the shopper should not have been on its system and removed the record. Facewatch's chief executive attributes the cases in the Guardian article to human error in store processes. The inspected sources do not show whether the fault lay in how the shopper was added to the watchlist, in a face match or in the in-store handling.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Chester: shopper told to leave a Home Bargains store as a shoplifter after being flagged on the Facewatch system, which Facewatch later said should not have held a record for the shopper","summary":"A 67-year-old shopper told the BBC and the Guardian that staff at a Home Bargains store in Chester told the shopper to leave in front of other people because the shopper had come up on the store's Facewatch system as a shoplifter. Facewatch later sent the shopper a photo with words saying items had been put into a bag and stolen. Facewatch said the shopper should not have been on its system and that the image and associated record were permanently removed. The Guardian reports that a subject access request showed the shopper had been incorrectly associated with a shoplifting incident on an earlier visit, and that Facewatch's chief executive attributed the three cases in the article, which include this shopper's, to human error in store processes. Home Bargains declined to comment. The shopper reports feeling physically sick and helpless. The Guardian reports that Home Bargains later offered an apology and a 100 pound voucher on condition of confidentiality, which the shopper declined. The year of the visit is inferred to be 2026 from the BBC report of 22 February 2026.","incidentDate":"2026-01-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"year","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-02-22","aiSystem":"Facewatch facial recognition watchlist alerts (deployed by Home Bargains)","aiProduct":"Facewatch facial recognition","aiCompany":"Facewatch","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"unverified","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The BBC and the Guardian report the shopper describing feeling physically sick and helpless after being told to leave a store as a shoplifter in front of others, and lasting unease about being recorded. Facewatch said the shopper should not have been on its system.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"disputed","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One shopper reported being told to leave and distressed. No other person is reported harmed in this account.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0e56wjz6wo","primarySourceLabel":"BBC News (22 Feb 2026): Chester man accused of being thief after Home Bargains face scan alert","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-29T21:15:52.8187+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:31.23933+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["historical-2026"]},{"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-delhi-police-facial-recognition-jantar-mantar-list-25-in-jail","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'According to the police affidavit submitted on August 17, its FRS identified individuals with criminal records at the protest site'; 'It said that 2,402 people were identified by the Delhi Police'; 'and 471 through criminal records.'; 'No actions are taken solely based upon the result of the facial recognition system which is only the first step to identify a person in the crowd who has a criminal record.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'According to the Delhi Police affidavit, 2,402 people were identified through its biometric database, Crime Kundli, while another 471 were identified through criminal records.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'The Delhi Police's affidavit of August 17, 2026 told the Supreme Court that 2,873 persons with criminal records had been spotted by the FRS at the protest site.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"In an affidavit of 17 August 2026 before the Supreme Court, Delhi Police said its Facial Recognition System had identified 2,873 people with criminal antecedents at the Jantar Mantar protest site between 20 and 26 July 2026, 2,402 through its 'Crime Kundli' biometric database and 471 through criminal records, and that no action is taken solely on an FRS result before field verification.","causal_attribution":"The affidavit as quoted by The Indian Express and relayed by Outlook and IFF; not inspected directly."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'An investigation of those with serious charges, murder, attempted murder and rape, and child abuse, shows that at least 25 people on the list, identified by the Facial Recognition System (FRS) at Jantar Mantar, were in jail as per police, jail and court records.'; 'In this group, 17 faced charges of murder; four of rape, including two in POCSO cases; and four more of attempt to murder were lodged in Delhi'; 'Court and jail records for all 25 show custody dates precede the protest'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'At least 25 of the 2,873 people identified by Delhi Police'; 'were already in jail when they were flagged, an investigation of police, prison and court records by The Indian Express has found.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'Three were \"identified\" on July 24, twenty-one on July 25 and one on July 26, each with a timestamp.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"At least 25 of the 205 listed people facing murder, rape, POCSO or attempted-murder charges were in Tihar, Mandoli or Rohini jails when the FRS logged them at Jantar Mantar (17 murder, four rape of which the Express's narrative counts two and its itemised list three as POCSO cases, four attempted murder), with timestamps on 24, 25 and 26 July 2026 and custody dates that in some cases precede the protest by years.","causal_attribution":"The Indian Express's own check of police, prison and court records (one chain, relayed by Outlook and IFF); the Delhi Police response did not address the 25 cases."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'On Tuesday, when the Supreme Court quashed all FIRs related to the exam leak protests by students, it let the government proceed against the 2,873 people who the Delhi Police claimed had criminal records'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Delhi Police was given permission to register one fresh FIR concerning 2,873 people alleged to have serious criminal antecedents and initially reported to have been present at Jantar Mantar.'; 'The Court did not find that the 2,873 were present, had qualifying criminal records or committed violence.'; 'the order prescribed no method or express requirement that checks precede arrest or other action'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'On September 1, 2026, a Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, invoking Article 142, quashed all FIRs registered against students who participated in the July protests'; 'while directing that this should not prejudice their rights and that they must be given every opportunity to defend themselves'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"On 1 September 2026 the Supreme Court quashed the FIRs against the student protesters but permitted Delhi Police to register a fresh FIR concerning the 2,873 persons with alleged serious antecedents, directing that this should not prejudice their rights, and without a finding that they were present; the undertaking that action would follow field verification is the police's own, and The Federal notes the order prescribed no such requirement.","causal_attribution":"The order as described by the three outlets; not inspected directly."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Responding on Monday to a questionnaire from the Express, the Delhi Police said:'; 'During the protests, 2873 individuals identified as prima facie having criminal antecedents were spotted. However, further verification in this regard is pending.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'In its response to the Express, the Delhi Police did not address the 25 cases'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Responding to The Indian Express, Delhi Police said the 2,873 individuals had been spotted as prima facie having criminal antecedents and that further verification was pending; the response did not address the 25 cases.","causal_attribution":"Police statement as quoted by the Express."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'In response to a Right to Information (RTI) request in 2022, the police had revealed that it considered a match to be'; 'if its system showed an accuracy rate of 80 per cent.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'the Delhi Police disclosed that it treats any match with a similarity score above 80% as \"positive\"'; 'extracted in 2022 only after a Second Appeal before the Central Information Commission'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Delhi Police disclosed in 2022, in reply to Right to Information requests, that it treats a facial-recognition match with an 80 per cent similarity or accuracy score as positive.","causal_attribution":"Delhi Police's 2022 RTI replies as described by IFF, which obtained them, and by The Indian Express, which IFF says relies on the same disclosures; one chain. The reply itself was not inspected. IE describes the threshold as an accuracy rate of 80 per cent and IFF as a similarity score above 80 per cent."}],"effects":[{"label":"at least 25 people in judicial custody were logged by the police facial-recognition system as present at a protest and listed in a sworn affidavit of persons with criminal antecedents against whom a fresh FIR and field verification were permitted","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/delhi-police-facial-recognition-jantar-mantar-protest-accused-in-jail-10862099/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read on 2026-09-24 from an Internet Archive capture of 15 September 2026 (web.archive.org/web/20260915075622id_/...); the live page returns 403 to this host. Express Investigation of 4 September 2026 with the list of the 25 and the police response.","independence_group":"indian-express-investigation"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.outlookindia.com/national/jantar-mantar-protest-25-people-flagged-by-facial-recognition-were-in-jail-records-show","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-24 (Outlook India, 4 September 2026): relays the Express findings and the affidavit figures; same chain.","independence_group":"indian-express-investigation"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://internetfreedom.in/delhi-polices-facial-recognition-flagged-25-jailed-people-at-jantar-mantar-this-dragnet-must-end/","kind":"other","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-24 (Internet Freedom Foundation, Apar Gupta, 4 September 2026): advocacy analysis that relays the Express findings (same chain for the 25) and adds IFF's own 2022 RTI replies on the 80 per cent threshold, its 24 July 2026 representation and RTI applications.","independence_group":"iff-own-rti"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://thefederal.com/the-federal-special/one-protest-two-probes-why-the-2873-person-fir-raises-questions-255688","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live on 2026-09-24 (The Federal, 4 September 2026): analysis of the Supreme Court order and the affidavit relying on the Express report; same chain.","independence_group":"indian-express-investigation"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","public_services","privacy"],"unknowns":["Whether any of the 25 has been named in the fresh FIR, visited for field verification or otherwise acted against.","Whether the 25 (or the other 2,848 listed people) have been told they are on the list.","How many of the remaining 2,668 entries would fail the same check; the Express examined only the 205 most serious.","The vendor, algorithm and threshold actually applied at Jantar Mantar in July 2026.","The full text of the 17 August affidavit and the 1 September order (described as quoted).","Whether two or three of the four rape accused are POCSO cases: The Indian Express's narrative says two, its itemised list says three.","The protest window: The Indian Express and Outlook give 20 to 26 July; The Federal gives 20 to 25 July."],"geography":{"basis":"The protests and the facial-recognition deployment were at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi; the 25 were in Delhi's Tihar, Mandoli and Rohini prisons; the affidavit and order are in the Supreme Court of India (The Indian Express, IFF, The Federal).","court_countries":["IN"],"event_countries":["IN"],"affected_person_countries":["IN"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a contextual case in which an AI system made a consequential claim about identifiable people: a police facial-recognition system placed at least 25 people who were in prison at a protest, on a sworn list that the Supreme Court permitted police to act on. The finding rests on The Indian Express's records investigation (one chain, relayed by Outlook, IFF and The Federal) with the affidavit and order described as quoted; the 80 per cent threshold rests on IFF's 2022 RTI replies, which IFF says the Express also relies on. The listed people are not named.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-24"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Delhi Police's own affidavit, as quoted by The Indian Express, attributes the 2,873 identifications to its Facial Recognition System matching faces against the 'Crime Kundli' biometric database and criminal records; the Express's records check shows the system logged at least 25 people who were in custody. The affidavit was not inspected directly.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Delhi: the police facial-recognition system logged at least 25 people who were in Tihar, Mandoli or Rohini jails as present at the Jantar Mantar student protests (20 to 26 July 2026), with timestamps on 24 to 26 July, on a sworn list of 2,873 persons with 'criminal antecedents' that the Supreme Court allowed police to register a fresh FIR against (Indian Express investigation, 4 September 2026)","summary":"In an affidavit of 17 August 2026 before the Supreme Court of India, Delhi Police said its Facial Recognition System (FRS) had identified 2,873 people with criminal antecedents at the Jantar Mantar protests of 20 to 26 July 2026 (2,402 through its 'Crime Kundli' biometric database and 471 through other criminal records). On 1 September the Court quashed the FIRs against the student protesters but let the police proceed against the 2,873; the police say any action will follow field verification. The Indian Express checked the 205 listed people facing murder, attempted-murder, rape or child-sexual-offence charges against police, prison and court records and found that at least 25 of them (17 accused of murder, four of rape (two or three under POCSO; the Express's narrative and its list differ), four of attempted murder) were lodged in Delhi's Tihar, Mandoli or Rohini prisons when the system logged them at the protest site with timestamps on 24, 25 and 26 July; some had been in custody for years. Delhi Police told the newspaper that further verification of the 2,873 was pending and, in its affidavit, that no action is taken solely on a facial-recognition result and that field verification follows each match. The police disclosed in 2022, in reply to a Right to Information request, that it treats a match with an 80 per cent similarity score as positive. Whether any of the 25 has since been named in the fresh FIR or visited for verification is not reported.","incidentDate":"2026-07-24","incidentEndDate":"2026-07-26","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-09-04","aiSystem":"Delhi Police Facial Recognition System (FRS): face-matching software run on protest footage against the police 'Crime Kundli' biometric database and other criminal records; the vendor and algorithm are not identified in the inspected reporting","aiProduct":"Unidentified facial recognition system","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["legal_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"At least 25 people in judicial custody were recorded by the police facial-recognition system as present at a protest they could not have attended and were placed, in a sworn affidavit before the Supreme Court, on a list of 2,873 persons with criminal antecedents against whom the Court permitted a fresh FIR and police field verification; The Indian Express reports the misidentifications and the Internet Freedom Foundation describes the exposure to verification visits and prosecution as the harm. No arrest, FIR entry or verification visit of any of the 25 is reported in the inspected sources.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":25,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"The Indian Express states 'at least 25 people on the list' were in jail when logged, and lists them (17 murder, four rape, four attempted murder). The other 2,668 entries were not checked, so the count is a documented minimum of 25.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"IN","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"investigation_opened","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/delhi-police-facial-recognition-jantar-mantar-protest-accused-in-jail-10862099/","primarySourceLabel":"The Indian Express, 4 September 2026: Police say cameras 'caught' murder, rape accused at CJP protest - some were actually in jail (Express Investigation)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-24T03:46:45.247544+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:35.08761+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["facial-recognition","india","delhi","protest-surveillance","supreme-court","police","false-match","made-claim-about","jantar-mantar"]},{"id":"2026-sao-gabriel-da-palha-openai-fbi-report-chatgpt-father-detained-54-days","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Durante cerca de dois meses, João (nome fictício), 36 anos, manteve conversas com o ChatGPT que, segundo a Polícia Civil do Espírito Santo, indicavam um possível plano para matar o próprio filho, de 8 anos'; 'o agricultor foi preso quando saía de casa na zona rural de São Gabriel da Palha'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'O homem foi preso em 19 de junho, um dia antes da data que havia escolhido para cometer o crime.'; 'A OpenAI, criadora do assistente de inteligência artificial, informou o ocorrido ao FBI, que repassou as informações às autoridades brasileiras.'; 'O FBI, equivalente americano à Polícia Federal, encaminhou a denúncia ao Ministério da Justiça e Segurança Pública, que direcionou o material à Polícia Civil do Espírito Santo.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'Um homem de 36 anos foi preso no Espírito Santo suspeito de planejar a morte do próprio filho, de 8 anos, para deixar de pagar pensão alimentícia'; 'A prisão aconteceu na zona rural de São Gabriel da Palha, no Noroeste do estado, no último dia 19.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'El hombre, cuyo nombre la BBC no revela para proteger la identidad de su hijo, fue arrestado en la zona rural de São Gabriel da Palha el 19 de junio'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The 36-year-old exchanged messages with ChatGPT which the Espírito Santo civil police describe as plans to kill his eight-year-old son and carry out attacks; OpenAI reported the messages to the FBI, which passed them to Brazilian authorities; and he was arrested on 19 June 2026 at his home in rural São Gabriel da Palha, a day before the date on which police believed the plan would be carried out.","causal_attribution":"Police account carried by two independent chains (BBC interviews; G1 with civil-police material)."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'João* foi preso preventivamente no dia 19 de junho. Na quinta-feira (13/8), ele foi solto após a Justiça conceder um habeas corpus apresentado pela defesa, ao entender que houve demora excessiva na conclusão da investigação policial. O agricultor ficou detido por 54 dias.'; 'A Justiça também impôs medidas cautelares ao agricultor, como o uso de tornozeleira eletrônica e a proibição de se aproximar ou manter contato com o filho e com a mãe da criança.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Después de 54 días bajo custodia, fue puesto en libertad el 13 de agosto debido a retrasos en la investigación. No se han presentado cargos, pero la investigación de la policía continúa.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"He was held in pre-trial detention for 54 days; on 13 August 2026 a court granted habeas corpus because, after more than 50 days, the police inquiry had not been concluded and no charge had been filed, and imposed an electronic ankle monitor and a ban on approaching or contacting his son and the child's mother; no charges had been brought and the investigation continues.","causal_attribution":"Court decision as reported by the BBC (single chain; the Spanish version is the same report)."},{"id":"c3","status":"disputed","evidence":[{"locator":"'Tudo aquilo que a plataforma trouxe pra gente foi corroborado com a chegada da polícia ao local. Ele confirmou algumas coisas que pesquisou em relação ao filho, mas negou essa intenção de matá-lo'; 'Se conversar com IA e falar bobagens for crime, todo mundo vai preso'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'En los registros de su propiedad se encontraron cuatro botellas que contenían sustancias no identificadas y una cuerda amarrada con un nudo'; 'El hombre niega haber tenido la intención de hacerle daño a su hijo.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Police say everything the platform provided was corroborated when they arrived, that four bottles of unidentified substances and a knotted rope were found, and that he confirmed some searches about his son but denied intending to kill him; his lawyer says talking nonsense to an AI is not a crime and that no concrete step was taken.","causal_attribution":"Police and defence accounts as quoted by the BBC; the dispute concerns intent, not the detention."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'a Open IA não respondeu aos questionamentos sobre por que apenas parte das conversas foi enviada'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Según los investigadores, OpenAI proporcionó detalles del usuario y de los mensajes que envió, pero no las respuestas de ChatGPT.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'Os moderadores podem classificar a atividade como um caso de baixo risco ou desativar a conta e entrar em contato com pessoas e organizações mais capazes de resolver a situação, como aconteceu no Espírito Santo.'; 'Este foi apenas o terceiro caso do tipo no Brasil, disse o delegado Breno Andrade à TV Gazeta'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"OpenAI provided investigators with the user's details and the messages he sent but not ChatGPT's replies; it did not answer the BBC's question why and said it may notify law enforcement when it detects a credible and imminent risk of harm to others; G1 reported that OpenAI's process combines automated systems and human moderators who may contact outside bodies, as happened in this case, and that the police chief called it the third such case in Brazil.","causal_attribution":"OpenAI statements and investigators' accounts as reported; the absence of the replies is stated by investigators to the BBC."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Durante cerca de dois meses, João (nome fictício), 36 anos, manteve conversas com o ChatGPT'; 'O caso chegou até a Polícia Civil do Espírito Santo no dia 16 de junho'; 'o agricultor foi preso quando saía de casa na zona rural de São Gabriel da Palha'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Durante casi dos meses, un agricultor brasileño intercambió estos y otros mensajes con el asistente de inteligencia artificial ChatGPT'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The conversations ran for about two months and, per the police account, also included taking his own life; the case reached the Espírito Santo civil police on 16 June 2026 through the Ministry of Justice's cyber-operations laboratory, and he was arrested three days later as he left his home.","causal_attribution":"BBC account (single chain)."}],"effects":[{"label":"held 54 days in pre-trial detention without charge after OpenAI reported his messages; released under electronic monitoring and a ban on contacting his son and the child's mother","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"police say the report let them arrest him a day before the date on which they believed the plan against the child would be carried out","claim_id":"c1","direction":"positive"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/c8dn1l7vr6ro","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"pt-br","translation_note":"Read live in Portuguese on 2026-09-23 (BBC News Brasil, Iara Diniz, 14 August 2026): messages seen by the BBC, police chief and defence-lawyer interviews, the habeas corpus release and precautionary measures. Translated by the reviewer.","independence_group":"bbc"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cxnvlg14e1p8o","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"es","translation_note":"Read live in Spanish on 2026-09-23 (BBC News Mundo, 16 September 2026): Spanish text produced by AI translation from an English-language BBC original and reviewed by a BBC journalist before publication (stated in the article); same reporting chain as s1, which is preferred where the two diverge. Translated by the reviewer.","independence_group":"bbc"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://g1.globo.com/tecnologia/noticia/2026/06/27/como-chatgpt-identificou-plano-de-pai-para-matar-o-filho-e-levou-alerta-para-autoridades.ghtml","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"pt-BR","translation_note":"Read live in Portuguese on 2026-09-23 (G1, 27 June 2026): arrest on 19 June, the OpenAI to FBI to Ministry of Justice to state police chain, message images from the civil police, OpenAI statement, police chief to TV Gazeta. Translated by the reviewer.","independence_group":"g1-globo"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.migalhas.com.br/quentes/459083/pai-e-preso-apos-planejar-morte-do-filho-no-chatgpt-veja-analise","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"pt","translation_note":"Read live in Portuguese on 2026-09-23 (Migalhas, 26 June 2026): summary attributed to an earlier G1/TV Gazeta report of 26 June, with lawyers' analysis; same Globo chain as s3. Translated by the reviewer.","independence_group":"g1-globo"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use","institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","relationships","privacy"],"unknowns":["What ChatGPT replied during the two months of conversations (OpenAI did not provide the replies).","Whether charges will be brought after the forensic results and phone examination.","Whether he in fact contacted a hired killer, as he told ChatGPT.","The exact date OpenAI made its report to the FBI.","His identity (withheld by the BBC; not sought here)."],"geography":{"basis":"Arrest at his home in rural São Gabriel da Palha, Espírito Santo (BBC, G1, Migalhas); he lives there; habeas corpus granted by the Brazilian court handling the pre-trial detention (BBC: a Justiça). OpenAI's report went via the FBI in the United States, which is not an event location.","court_countries":["BR"],"event_countries":["BR"],"affected_person_countries":["BR"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a contextual case: an AI operator's report about a user, generated by ChatGPT safety systems, led to 54 days of pre-trial detention without charge, ended by habeas corpus. Two independent reporting chains (BBC; Globo) support the arrest and its cause; the release and its terms rest on the BBC. The police account that the report prevented a planned killing is preserved as context and intent is recorded as disputed. Nobody is named; the child is not identified. The charter states that this class needs no separate ruling.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-23"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"He conversed with ChatGPT for about two months; OpenAI's safety systems flagged the conversations and the company reported them to the FBI, which passed them to Brazilian authorities (BBC, G1, with the police chief's account). OpenAI did not provide ChatGPT's replies, so what the chatbot said is unknown.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with","made_claim_about"]},"name":"São Gabriel da Palha, Espírito Santo: a 36-year-old farmer was held in pre-trial detention for 54 days after OpenAI reported his ChatGPT messages about killing his eight-year-old son to the FBI, which passed them to Brazilian authorities; a court released him on 13 August 2026 because the investigation had not been completed, with an ankle monitor and a ban on contacting the child, and no charges had been filed; he denies intending harm and his lawyer says he was talking nonsense to a chatbot","summary":"Over about two months in 2026 a 36-year-old farmer in rural São Gabriel da Palha, Espírito Santo, exchanged messages with ChatGPT that the Espírito Santo civil police describe as plans to kill his eight-year-old son, attack other people and kill himself; one message said he had offered 50,000 to someone to kill him and his son. OpenAI reported the messages to the FBI, which passed them through Brazil's Ministry of Justice cyber-operations laboratory to the state police on 16 June; the man was arrested on 19 June as he left home, a day before the date on which police believed the plan would be carried out. Police say what the platform provided was corroborated at the scene (four bottles of unidentified substances and a knotted rope were found) but that he denied intending to kill the child; his lawyer says he was talking nonsense to a chatbot and took no concrete step. After 54 days in custody a court granted habeas corpus on 13 August 2026 because the inquiry had not been concluded and no charges had been brought, imposing electronic monitoring and a ban on approaching or contacting his son and the child's mother. Police were still examining his phone and awaiting forensic results. OpenAI provided user details and his messages but not ChatGPT's replies and did not answer the BBC's question why; it told the BBC it may notify law enforcement when it detects a credible and imminent risk of harm to others. The case is recorded as an institutional response to AI use: the reported adverse consequence is the detention without charge, and the police account that the report prevented a planned killing is preserved as context.","incidentDate":"2026-06-19","incidentEndDate":"2026-08-13","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2026-06-26","aiSystem":"ChatGPT (OpenAI); OpenAI's automated detection and human moderation systems, which generated the report","aiProduct":"ChatGPT and OpenAI moderation","aiCompany":"OpenAI","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The user was held in pre-trial detention for 54 days without charge on the strength of his ChatGPT messages as reported by OpenAI, then released under electronic monitoring and a no-contact order covering his son and the child's mother while the investigation continues. Police say the report was corroborated at the scene and prevented a planned killing; he and his lawyer dispute any intent. The consequence to him is undisputed; whether it was warranted is contested.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person, the ChatGPT user who was detained (BBC, G1). The child and the child's mother are not counted as harmed. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"BR","platformType":"chatbot","outcomeType":"investigation_opened","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/c8dn1l7vr6ro","primarySourceLabel":"BBC News Brasil, 14 August 2026: Ele contou ao ChatGPT que queria matar o filho e foi preso — conversas com IA podem ser prova de crime no Brasil?","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-23T03:45:57.312143+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:51.984156+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["chatgpt","openai","brazil","espirito-santo","law-enforcement-report","pre-trial-detention","fbi","institutional-response","communicated-with","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-abc-ai-medical-scribe-false-drug-use-record","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'she was asked whether she consented to having the appointment transcribed by artificial intelligence (AI)'; 'with the AI scribe making up the serious but false claim that'; 'it made up that I take [psychedelic] mushrooms. I have never done mushrooms in my life'; 'only picked up the mistake after her kidney stone surgery in March, when she read the post-operative letter her specialist sent to her GP'; 'micro-dosed mushrooms and that could be the reason for prior bleeding around the kidneys'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The patient consented to AI transcription of her first urology appointment; after her March 2026 kidney-stone surgery she found that the post-operative letter to her GP stated she micro-dosed mushrooms and that this could explain earlier bleeding around the kidneys, a claim she says is false.","causal_attribution":"Patient's account to ABC; the attribution of the false entry to the AI scribe is hers and ABC's framing."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'I was gobsmacked and in tears'; 'was particularly stressed as she was receiving workers' compensation and felt any mention of illegal drugs on her medical record could impact her case'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"She reported distress and feared the entry could affect her workers' compensation case.","causal_attribution":"Patient's account."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'the urologist sent a letter apologising'; 'Please be assured that we take the accuracy of our documentation very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this occurred'; 'it appeared to be from an error during the \"dictation or transcription process\"'; 'The urologist corrected the correspondence and in her letter said she would review how AI was used in her practice'; 'The doctor did not provide any responses to the ABC's questions about what changes, if any, have been made since'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"After her complaint the urologist apologised in writing, said the cause could not be determined but appeared to be an error in the dictation or transcription process, corrected the correspondence and said she would review her use of AI; she did not answer ABC's questions about changes made.","causal_attribution":"Doctor's letter as quoted by ABC; the doctor does not confirm the scribe as the origin."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'AHPRA, said clinicians must always check all output from an AI scribe for accuracy to ensure they meet their professional obligations'; 'said it was clear her doctor did not do this'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"AHPRA told ABC that clinicians must always check all output from an AI scribe for accuracy; the patient said it was clear her doctor had not.","causal_attribution":"Regulator comment and patient's view; context for the case."}],"effects":[{"label":"a false claim of psychedelic-mushroom use entered the patient's medical record and reached her GP; distress and fear for her workers' compensation case","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"},{"label":"the correspondence was corrected and the doctor apologised after the patient complained","claim_id":"c3","direction":"positive"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-14/ai-medical-scribe-error-leaves-patient-devastated/107031672","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read live in English on 2026-09-20 (HTTP 200; saved body 402,866 bytes). Feature by the ABC Specialist Reporting Team based on the patient's interview and the letters she received, plus regulator and peak-body comment.","independence_group":"abc-news-2026-08-14"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["health"],"unknowns":["The AI scribe product and vendor are not named.","The location of the clinic and the patient's residence are not stated.","The date of the appointment at which the transcription was made is not stated. The report gives the surgery as 'in March' without a year; 2026 is taken from the 14 August 2026 publication date.","Whether the false claim originated in the scribe's output or in a later dictation or editing step is not established; the doctor's letter says the cause could not be determined.","What changes the practice made afterwards are not reported."],"geography":{"basis":"No inspected source states where the appointment or the patient is located. The ABC report frames the case within Australian regulation (AHPRA, RACGP, TGA) and quotes Australian bodies, but does not locate the patient or the clinic, so the event and affected-person countries are left unknown rather than inferred from the publisher. No court proceeding.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":[],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as an everyday-assistance and health case in which an AI system made a false claim about a person in her medical record, with reported distress and a corrected record. Single ABC News report read in full; claims recorded as reported and attributed to the patient and the doctor's letter. The patient is named in the report but not in this record; the doctor and clinic are unnamed.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-20"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The patient told ABC that the appointment was transcribed by an AI scribe with her consent and that the false mushroom claim appeared in the resulting post-operative letter; the doctor's apology attributes the claim to an error during the 'dictation or transcription process' without confirming the scribe as the origin. The product is not named. Single ABC report.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Reported by ABC News (Australia): an AI scribe used at a urology appointment inserted a false claim that the patient took psychedelic mushrooms into her record; the error reached her GP in a post-operative letter and was corrected only after she complained","summary":"A patient who consented to having her first urology appointment transcribed by an artificial-intelligence scribe discovered, after her kidney-stone surgery in March 2026, that the post-operative letter her specialist sent to her GP stated she micro-dosed psychedelic mushrooms and that this could explain earlier bleeding around the kidneys. She says she has never taken mushrooms. She was receiving workers' compensation and feared that any mention of illegal drugs on her medical record could affect her case. After she complained, the urologist sent a letter of apology saying the practice takes documentation accuracy seriously, that she could not determine how the claim came to be included but that it appeared to be an error during the 'dictation or transcription process', that the correspondence had been corrected and that she would review how AI was used in her practice. The doctor did not answer ABC's questions about what changes had been made. Australia's practitioner regulator AHPRA told ABC that clinicians must check all AI-scribe output; the patient says it was clear her doctor had not. The account is a single ABC News report (14 August 2026) based on the patient's interview and the letters she received; the scribe product and the clinic's location are not named.","incidentDate":"2026-03-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-08-14","aiSystem":"AI medical scribe (product not named in the report)","aiProduct":"Unidentified AI medical scribe","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The patient reports distress ('gobsmacked and in tears') and fear for her workers' compensation case after a false illegal-drug claim entered her medical record and was sent to her GP; the record was corrected after her complaint. The false entry is attributed by the patient to the AI scribe and by the doctor to an error in the dictation or transcription process.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One patient whose record carried the false claim (ABC report). The clinician used the AI tool, so the patient is counted as another person harmed rather than a participant user. Exact 1.","victimAgeRange":"adult","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"internal_action","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-14/ai-medical-scribe-error-leaves-patient-devastated/107031672","primarySourceLabel":"ABC News (Specialist Reporting Team), 14 August 2026: Error by AI scribe during medical appointment leaves patient devastated","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-20T03:28:12.119063+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:22.846812+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["ai-scribe","medical-records","health","transcription-error","false-record","workers-compensation","abc-news"]},{"id":"2026-utah-meta-ai-suggested-prompts-children-profile","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Meta AI posed a series of invasive prompts under the video, such as \"Who's the child passenger?\" and \"Where does Kalie Robins live?\"'; 'pulled information from her past posts ... including her location'; 'drew on other profiles, such as her mother's account'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Who's the child passenger?'; 'their names, birth information, pictures and videos of them'; 'It pieced together my information to show people where I live'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'suggested questions aimed at uncovering information about her children — including their names, birthdates, videos, newborn photos, even photos that had been deleted — and, ultimately, her live location'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Meta AI suggested prompts under Robins's 1 September car video including 'Who's the child passenger?' and 'Where does Kalie Robins live?', and clicking them produced her daughters' names, birth details, photos and videos from her own and relatives' posts, and assembled her likely location.","causal_attribution":"Robins's account given in separate interviews to CNET, NewsNation and Futurism; Meta does not dispute that the prompts were generated."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'A Meta spokesperson told CNET in an email that it \"fixed\" the issue and that Meta AI will no longer suggest inappropriate, personal questions on users' posts'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'\"While the content was available to this user, these prompts should never have been generated,\" Meta spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby said, according to The Verge'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"},{"locator":"'its AI search feature \"missed the mark\"'; '\"fixed that issue\"'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"}],"assertion":"Meta said the prompts 'missed the mark' and 'should never have been generated', that responses draw only on information the user can already access, and that it fixed the issue so Meta AI no longer suggests personal questions about people in posts.","causal_attribution":"Meta statements to three outlets."},{"id":"c3","status":"disputed","evidence":[{"locator":"'Meta also denied Robins' claim that its AI accessed a photo deleted years ago. Instead, Meta told CNET that the photo of Robins' kids was deleted right before the video was made and that a temporary bug briefly kept it visible. Robins disputed this'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Robins says one surfaced photo had been deleted years earlier; Meta says the photo was deleted shortly before the video and remained briefly visible because of a temporary bug.","causal_attribution":"Competing accounts from Robins and Meta reported by CNET."}],"effects":[{"label":"Meta AI prompts compiled a mother's young daughters' names, birth details and photos and her likely location; the mother reported distress and lost trust; Meta changed the feature","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/meta-ai-viral-video-personal-prompts-about-kids/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-18 (CNET, 12 Sep 2026). Direct interview with Robins plus Meta's emailed statement to CNET and its dispute of the deleted-photo detail.","independence_group":"cnet"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/tech/ai/mom-meta-ai-analyzing-posts-about-kids/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-18 via the MSN content API copy (NewsNation, 17 Sep 2026; the newsnationnow.com host returns 403 to this box). Interview with Robins including the distress quotation.","independence_group":"newsnation"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://torontosun.com/news/world/utah-mom-sounds-alarm-after-meta-ai-digs-up-details-about-her-children-im-done","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-18 via the MSN content API copy (Toronto Sun, 15 Sep 2026). Relays Futurism's interview and Meta's statement to Futurism; treated as the Futurism chain.","independence_group":"futurism"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/meta-changes-ai-prompts-after-chatbot-asked-mother-to-identify-her-child-3408508/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-18 (Dexerto, 12 Sep 2026). Relays The Verge's report of Meta spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby's statement; treated as The Verge chain.","independence_group":"verge"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use","institutional_use"],"contexts":["privacy","everyday_life","relationships"],"unknowns":["What Meta changed and how many other users saw similar prompts about children is not disclosed.","Whether the compiled information was shown to anyone other than Robins is not established.","No regulator has announced an inquiry in the inspected sources."],"geography":{"basis":"Robins is described as a Utah mother (Toronto Sun/Futurism; TRT Haber); the posts and prompts occurred on her US Instagram/Facebook accounts. No court.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a privacy and made-claim-about case: an AI feature compiled identifying details about two young children and a named adult's location, the adult reported distress and loss of control, and the company acknowledged the prompts should not have been generated. Four sources across four reporting chains read; the children's details are not reproduced. Low severity.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-18"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"Meta acknowledged to CNET and The Verge that its AI generated the suggested prompts and that they 'should never have been generated', and said it fixed the issue. The AI made claims about identified people (the children's identities and the mother's location) rather than conversing with them; the mother's clicks on the prompts are recorded as own_use, and the platform's default feature as institutional_use.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Utah: Meta AI's suggested prompts under a mother's Instagram video compiled her young daughters' names, birth details and old photos and her likely home location; Meta said the prompts 'missed the mark' and changed the feature","summary":"On 1 September 2026 Kalie Robins, a Utah travel creator, posted a short Instagram video of herself singing in the car with one of her daughters; it was also shown on Facebook. The next day she noticed Meta AI had placed suggested questions under the post, starting with 'Who's the child passenger?'. Clicking the prompts, she said, produced her two daughters' names, birth information, photos and videos drawn from her own and relatives' past posts, including a newborn photo from her mother's account and a picture she believed she had deleted years earlier, and a further prompt, 'Where does Kalie Robins live?', assembled older and newer posts into her likely location. Her 2 September reaction video drew more than 310,000 likes. Meta told reporters the prompts 'missed the mark', 'should never have been generated' and had been fixed, while saying the feature only surfaces information the user can already access; it disputed that a long-deleted photo was used, saying the photo had been deleted shortly before the video and remained briefly visible through a bug. Robins said Meta never contacted her and that the episode left her feeling she had 'failed' her children.","incidentDate":"2026-09-02","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-09-10","aiSystem":"Meta AI (suggested-question prompts under Instagram and Facebook posts, drawing on the user's and related accounts' content)","aiProduct":"Meta AI","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A mother experienced distress and a loss of control over her children's privacy after Meta AI's suggested prompts compiled her two young daughters' identifying details and her likely location from scattered family posts; Meta acknowledged the prompts should not have been generated and changed the feature.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Kalie Robins (who used the prompts and reported distress) and her two daughters, whose identifying details were compiled. Exact count of three; her mother and other relatives whose posts were drawn on are not counted as harmed.","victimAgeRange":"minor","jurisdiction":"US","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"internal_action","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/meta-ai-viral-video-personal-prompts-about-kids/","primarySourceLabel":"CNET, 12 Sep 2026: Mother calls for 'accountability' after Meta AI mines family posts for info on minors (interview with Kalie Robins; Meta statement)","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-18T03:25:15.671921+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:58.137201+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["meta-ai","instagram","facebook","privacy","children","profiling","suggested-prompts","united-states","utah","made-claim-about"]},{"id":"2026-christi-hill-grok-false-officer-identification","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Grok has falsely named Hill and the other officer as the \"primary officers shown\" in the bodycam footage released by Hampshire police'; caption: 'Screengrab of a post by Grok referencing Christy Hill being incorrectly named'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'she was wrongly identified by social media users and artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok'; Hill 'criticised Grok ... for the \"chaos\" it caused by misidentifying her'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Grok falsely named Hill and another officer as the 'primary officers shown' in the bodycam footage of Nowak's arrest; the Guardian carries a screengrab of a Grok post incorrectly naming her.","causal_attribution":"The Guardian documents the Grok post with a screengrab; BBC Verify's interview independently carries her account of the Grok misidentification. What Grok answered to particular queries beyond the screengrabbed post is not documented."},{"id":"c2","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'Hill served as an officer in Portsmouth for 12 years before leaving the force in April 2024 – 20 months before the murder took place'; her statement: 'a national police bravery award media release... is being repeatedly shared and misattributed to this case'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Hill said she left Hampshire Constabulary in April 2024 - more than a year before Nowak was fatally stabbed in December 2025'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The identification is factually impossible: Hill left Hampshire Constabulary in April 2024, more than a year before the December 2025 murder; the confusion stems from a national police bravery award photo of her and a former colleague being misattributed.","causal_attribution":"Her account, uncontested in the inspected sources; the bravery-award photo mechanism is her explanation, attributed."},{"id":"c3","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'forced to flee to a safe space'; Hampshire: 'A police officer unrelated to this case has been misidentified online and subject to death threats.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'scared for her safety and has been hiding in a safe house'; 'leading to \"threats of violence\"'; video caption: \"received 'endless threats'\".","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"After the false posts, Hill received 'endless threats' and 'threats of violence' and is hiding in a safe house; Hampshire confirmed an unrelated officer was misidentified online and subjected to death threats.","causal_attribution":"Her account to two independent outlets plus the constabulary's own confirmation."},{"id":"c4","status":"corroborated","evidence":[{"locator":"'The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said on Tuesday that a male officer had been misidentified and that he had had to move out of his home.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'BBC Verify has also obtained evidence that current police officer Tristan Parsons, who was also wrongly accused online of being involved, was not in the country at the time of Nowak's murder.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"A second officer was wrongly accused in the same wave: the Home Secretary said a male officer had been misidentified and had to move out of his home; BBC Verify obtained evidence that serving officer Tristan Parsons was not in the country at the time of the murder.","causal_attribution":"The Home Secretary's account covers the displacement; BBC Verify's evidence covers Parsons's non-involvement. Whether Mahmood meant Parsons specifically is not stated; the two accounts are recorded separately."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Musk... posting on his X platform during the trial that he would fund a private prosecution of the officers involved.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Starmer passage: 'Musk, again, has been interfering in our politics in the last few days, trying to whip up division'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"Elon Musk posted during the trial that he would fund a private prosecution of the officers involved; Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused Musk of trying to 'whip up division' over the case.","causal_attribution":"Context for the amplification climate; not itself an AI claim."}],"effects":[{"label":"false AI identification of a former officer in a charged murder case; threats drove her into hiding","claim_id":"c3","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/03/former-officer-hampshire-hiding-after-being-falsely-linked-henry-nowak-arrest","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2026-06-03T16:28Z). Includes Hill's statement, the Grok screengrab reference, the Hampshire statement and the Home Secretary's account.","independence_group":"guardian"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg7pl7zj024o","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2026-06-04T15:50Z; BBC Verify, Devlin & Nguyen, with André Rhoden-Paul).","independence_group":"bbc"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["unknown"],"contexts":["justice","everyday_life"],"unknowns":["What Grok answered in sessions other than the screengrabbed post, and whether xAI corrected or constrained the false identification, is not reported.","The date the false posts began (during the trial) is not precisely stated; Hill first saw them around 03:00 BST on 2 June 2026.","Whether any platform removed the misidentifying content is not reported.","The jury inquest into Nowak's death is expected next year; its findings are pending and concern the police response, not the misidentification."],"geography":{"basis":"Event: the online spread about the Hampshire (Southampton) case and Hill's concealment in the UK. Affected persons: both officers are UK-based (Parsons was abroad at the time of the murder, not at the time of the misidentification). Court country: the Digwa murder trial and the expected inquest are in England; no proceeding by or against the misidentified officers is reported.","court_countries":["GB"],"event_countries":["GB"],"affected_person_countries":["GB"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a consequential false claim about identified people (made_claim_about): two officers wrongly named by AI platforms in a charged case, documented by two independent chains including the outlet's screengrab evidence and the constabulary's confirmation. Hill spoke publicly; Parsons is named by BBC Verify in a vindicating context. The Nowak case background is limited to what the claims require.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Guardian carries a screengrab of a Grok post incorrectly naming Hill and reports in its own voice that Grok falsely named her and the other officer as the 'primary officers shown'; Hill's own statement names 'AI platforms such as Grok'; BBC Verify's interview confirms the Grok misidentification. xAI was approached for comment by both outlets.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Grok falsely named former officer Christi Hill as an arresting officer in the Henry Nowak case; she is in hiding after threats","summary":"In early June 2026, social media posts and the AI chatbot Grok falsely identified former Hampshire police constable Christi Hill as one of the 'primary officers shown' in bodycam footage of the December 2025 arrest of Henry Nowak, who died after being stabbed. Hill had left the force in April 2024 — more than a year before the murder — and says the misidentification stems from a national police bravery award photo being misattributed. After 'endless threats' and 'threats of violence' she is hiding in a safe house. BBC Verify separately obtained evidence that serving officer Tristan Parsons, also wrongly accused online, was not in the country at the time; the Home Secretary said a misidentified male officer had to move out of his home. Hampshire Constabulary confirmed an unrelated officer was misidentified and received death threats.","incidentDate":"2026-06-02","incidentEndDate":"2026-06-04","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"repeated_interactions","reportedDate":"2026-06-03","aiSystem":"Grok (and other AI platforms, unnamed)","aiProduct":"Grok","aiCompany":"xAI","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","reputational_harm","loss_of_autonomy"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A factually impossible identification by AI platforms including Grok put a former officer into hiding after death threats; a serving officer wrongly accused in the same wave had to move out of his home, per the Home Secretary.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":2,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"Two documented harmed people: Hill (Guardian interview and statement; BBC Verify interview) and the male officer identified by BBC Verify as Tristan Parsons (BBC's evidence he was abroad; the Home Secretary's account that a male officer had to move home). No further misidentified officers are reported in the inspected sources.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"GB","platformType":"chatbot","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/03/former-officer-hampshire-hiding-after-being-falsely-linked-henry-nowak-arrest","primarySourceLabel":"The Guardian (3 Jun 2026) — Hill's statement, the Grok screengrab, Hampshire and Mahmood accounts","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-15T09:25:27.124866+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:32.056946+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["made-claim-about","false-identification","grok","police","threats","uk"]},{"id":"2026-broffoni-google-ai-false-identification","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Una mujer a la que no conocía le avisó que en varios grupos de WhatsApp de Ceuta estaban circulando videos e imágenes suyas y que se decía que estaba proporcionando gas pimienta a inmigrantes marroquíes'; 'Recibí amenazas de muerte, de violación y ataques en general.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 26 August 2026, WhatsApp groups in Ceuta circulated videos and images claiming Flavia Broffoni was a woman filmed there allegedly giving pepper spray to Moroccan migrants, and she received death and rape threats.","causal_attribution":"Broffoni's account to La Nación, supported by the warning email and the group screenshot shown to the outlet. One reporting chain; the threats are her report, attributed."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"Screenshot passage: 'uno de los usuarios había tomado un recorte del rostro de la mujer del video y lo había ingresado en una herramienta de inteligencia artificial de Google para consultarle quién era. La consulta incluía como contexto la palabra \"activista\". La respuesta identificaba a la persona de la fotografía como Flavia Broffoni'.","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"Google Argentina response: 'no pueden confirmar que la captura corresponda a una respuesta generada por sus sistemas porque no cuentan con un enlace al resultado original'; no formal report received.","relation":"context","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The identification originated from a Google AI answer: a group user cropped the woman's face from the video and queried a Google AI tool with the context word 'activista'; the answer identified her as Flavia Broffoni and described her public profile.","causal_attribution":"The screenshot is the evidence of the AI answer; Google neither confirmed nor denied its provenance. The claim is attributed to the screenshot account, not asserted as independently proven."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Este medio también probó utilizar la búsqueda de Google a partir del video de la mujer que filmó en Ceuta, y la respuesta de la IA fue afirmar que se trataba de otra persona, una estudiante y community manager oriunda de Quilmes, de la cual brindó datos personales y redes sociales.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"La Nación itself ran the same video through Google's search and the AI asserted the woman was a different person — a student and community manager from Quilmes — and supplied her personal data and social networks.","causal_attribution":"The outlet documents its own replication test — direct evidence that the tool produces false identifications from this input; the second misidentified person is not counted as harmed (no virality-driven harm to her is reported)."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Yo estoy en la Patagonia, Argentina y nunca tuve relación con lo que está ocurriendo allá. La última vez que estuve en España, si mal no recuerdo, fue en 2014'; the 'tres mentiras' analysis; the others'-tests passage ('muy probablemente', short brown hair vs her current long grey hair).","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Broffoni says she is not the woman in the video and was in Patagonia, having last visited Spain in 2014; she also notes there is no evidence the real woman distributed pepper spray, and that tests by other people with the same photo sometimes produced refusals and sometimes 'muy probablemente' her, justified partly from outdated photos.","causal_attribution":"Her account; the factual impossibility is uncontested in the inspected reporting. The real woman in the video is unidentified and the pepper-spray claim about her is unverified."}],"effects":[{"label":"false AI identification attached to an invented accusation, followed by death and rape threats","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/una-ia-identifico-erroneamente-a-una-activista-argentina-en-un-video-de-ceuta-denuncia-hostigamiento-nid28082026/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"es","translation_note":"Read in Spanish on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2026-08-28T15:09Z; 25 substantive paragraphs including the Broffoni interview, the screenshot account, the outlet's own test and Google Argentina's response). Model translation, no human reviewer.","independence_group":"la-nacion"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["unknown"],"contexts":["everyday_life","privacy"],"unknowns":["Which Google product produced the identification is not named in the inspected reporting; only 'una herramienta de inteligencia artificial de Google' is described.","Whether a formal complaint or lawsuit was filed after 28 August 2026 is not reported.","The identity of the woman actually filmed in Ceuta, and any basis for the pepper-spray claim about her, is unknown.","The student from Quilmes falsely identified in La Nación's test: whether she experienced any harm from the tool's identification is unreported.","The reach of the false identification beyond the Ceuta WhatsApp groups (views, reshares) is not quantified."],"geography":{"basis":"Event: the identification and its circulation happened in Ceuta — the screenshot came from a Ceuta WhatsApp group and the warning sender is described as a citizen of Ceuta. Affected person: Broffoni is in Epuyén, Chubut, Argentine Patagonia ('Yo estoy en la Patagonia, Argentina'). No court proceeding is reported.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["ES"],"affected_person_countries":["AR"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a consequential false claim about a person (made_claim_about): a named adult publicly pursuing accountability, documented through one strong original chain that includes the outlet's own replication of the failure. Threats are attributed to her account; the AI answer's provenance is attributed to the screenshot account with Google's neither-confirm-nor-deny response recorded.","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The WhatsApp-group screenshot shows a Google AI answer naming Broffoni from a face crop with 'activista' context; La Nación independently reproduced a false identification of a different person from the same video; Broffoni reports that tests by others sometimes produced 'muy probablemente' her. Google Argentina neither confirmed nor denied that the screenshot came from its systems, asking for the original link. The specific product is not named in the inspected reporting.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Google AI falsely identified Argentine activist Flavia Broffoni as a woman in a Ceuta migrant-violence video; death and rape threats followed","summary":"On 26 August 2026, WhatsApp groups in Ceuta circulated videos and images claiming that Argentine political scientist and activist Flavia Broffoni — who was in Patagonia and had not been to Spain since 2014 — was a woman filmed in Ceuta allegedly giving pepper spray to Moroccan migrants. A screenshot from one group shows that a user cropped the woman's face from the video and asked a Google AI tool who she was, with the word 'activista' as context; the answer identified her as Flavia Broffoni with details of her public profile. Broffoni received death and rape threats. La Nación's own test with the same video produced a different false identification — a student from Quilmes, with her personal data. Google Argentina said it could not confirm the screenshot came from its systems without the original link and had received no formal report. Broffoni is weighing legal action with her lawyer.","incidentDate":"2026-08-26","incidentEndDate":"2026-08-28","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"range","exposurePattern":"single_interaction","reportedDate":"2026-08-28","aiSystem":"Google AI tool answering a face-crop query (product not named in inspected reporting)","aiProduct":"Unidentified Google AI tool (reported)","aiCompany":"Google","severity":"high","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["psychological_distress","reputational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A false AI identification attached to an invented accusation spread in Ceuta WhatsApp groups brought death and rape threats to a woman who was demonstrably on another continent, plus reputational damage she is now addressing with a lawyer.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"documented_minimum","affectedCountEvidence":"One documented harmed person: Broffoni, named and interviewed. The student from Quilmes falsely identified in La Nación's own test is not counted — no harm to her from virality is reported (the test was the outlet's own); she is recorded in the unknowns.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"AR","platformType":"assistant","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/una-ia-identifico-erroneamente-a-una-activista-argentina-en-un-video-de-ceuta-denuncia-hostigamiento-nid28082026/","primarySourceLabel":"La Nación (28 Aug 2026, Aldana Rizzuto) — interview with Broffoni, the WhatsApp screenshot account, the outlet's own replication test, and Google Argentina's response","firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-15T09:23:34.062763+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-09-30T01:17:29.743515+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["made-claim-about","false-identification","google-ai","argentina","ceuta","threats","defamation-adjacent"]}]}