1 May 2021BrazilUnidentified death-record matching system
A Brazilian federal judge in the 4th federal region ordered the social security institute (INSS) to pay a retiree R$3,917.67 in moral damages after finding that his pension had been stopped by a failure of the institute's artificial intelligence system, according to a Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF4) news item relayed by the Brazilian Institute of Social Security Law on 30 September 2022. The judge explained that the benefit was suspended automatically on 1 May 2021 by an artificial intelligence command that captured data from the death-records system (Sisobi), and that the data used, the person's name and mother's name, were not enough to prevent the wrongful cessation. The retiree said the pension was his only source of income; he asked for reactivation and sent a handwritten declaration, and although he showed in person that he was alive, the benefit was restored only in January 2022. The judge wrote that the AI 'proved inefficient or unintelligent' in this case and that the INSS made him wait 226 days. Arrears were also ordered paid. Whether the INSS appealed is not reported.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026
Mar 2021United StatesID.me Face Match
ID.me, an identity-verification company used by at least 21 US states to check people claiming unemployment benefits, asks claimants to pass a facial recognition step that compares their face with a photo of the same person, such as a driving licence. In June 2021 Motherboard (VICE) reported that a gig economy worker in Las Vegas was suddenly cut off from his unemployment benefits in late March after ID.me failed to identify him. He said that when he held his phone in the instructed position the system rejected him three times without giving a reason and then locked him out. He said he tried ID.me's chat support many times and the state of Nevada sent him back to ID.me; after several weeks he posted a public criticism on Twitter, and the company contacted him and, after several more days, verified his identity. He said he went three weeks without his benefit and could not pay bills. ID.me's chief executive told Motherboard that its Face Match algorithms operate at about 99.9% efficacy, that failures are a problem with how people use the system rather than the technology, and that the company was unaware of eligible people unable to verify their identity. Motherboard said other claimants in several states described similar lockouts; those accounts are not counted here.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 30/10/2026
2021United StatesNetradyne cameras
In September 2021 Motherboard reported accounts from six Amazon delivery drivers in five US states and the owner of an Amazon delivery company, who said the AI-powered Netradyne cameras Amazon had installed in its delivery vans from early 2021 regularly registered driving 'events' that were beyond their control or were not unsafe driving: being cut off by another car, glancing at a side mirror, stopping past a stop sign to see around a bush, or a stop sign flagged on a dirt road with no sign. Each event fed a weekly safe-driving score that, according to the drivers and an internal Amazon document Motherboard obtained, helped decide drivers' bonuses and prizes and delivery companies' bonuses. A driver in Los Angeles said the camera incorrectly penalised him and that requests to see the photos flagged as events went unanswered; a former driver in Texas said events that did not happen affected his score, which decided prizes from his delivery company. Amazon said the technology gives drivers real-time safety alerts, that accidents and violations had fallen since it was installed, and that its staff manually review appealed events so that erroneous ones do not affect drivers. Netradyne did not respond to Motherboard.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 27/10/2026
2021IndiaSamagra Vedika
An Al Jazeera investigation published on 24 January 2024, produced with The Reporters' Collective and the Pulitzer Center's AI Accountability Network, reports that Samagra Vedika, a system the Telangana government uses to consolidate residents' data and check welfare eligibility, wrongly tagged poor families in Hyderabad as owning cars, and that officials relied on those tags to deny them food security cards (subsidised rice). Al Jazeera says the system uses machine learning and entity resolution to match people across databases, and that since 2016 officials have been mandated to check whether the system approved an applicant before deciding. In one case it reports that the system mistook a widow's late husband, a rickshaw puller, for a car owner with a similar name; her renewal application was rejected in 2021 for possessing a four-wheeler. After she traced the vehicle's real owner, officials agreed there had been an algorithmic error but said her family income exceeded the limit, which Al Jazeera says was not the case; she had been without the subsidised rations for more than seven years. A second family, whose husband cannot drive, was rejected in 2021 for possessing a four-wheeler; in November 2023 the High Court of Telangana said the petitioner is eligible whenever new cards are issued. The government says the technology is highly precise and that wrong vehicle or house tags occur in under five per cent of cases and have mostly been corrected.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026