German court reporter says Microsoft Copilot described him as a child abuser and fraudster and gave out his address; prosecutors rejected his complaint
A court reporter from the Tübingen area found in 2024 that Microsoft's Copilot, asked about him, described him as a man charged in a child abuse case, an escapee from a psychiatric institution and a fraudster who cheated widows, according to his account to the public broadcaster SWR as relayed by heise and ComputerBild. All were defendants in trials he had covered as a journalist. heise and ComputerBild, both citing SWR, report that Copilot also gave his private phone number and full home address and offered a route there. He told The Register that seeing his name tied to these crimes was traumatising and that prosecutors had rejected his criminal complaint in two instances; according to the SWR account relayed by heise, the complaint failed because no real person was the author. After the Bavarian data-protection authority contacted Microsoft the claims were briefly unavailable and then returned. Microsoft told The Register it had investigated and taken appropriate and immediate action.
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 25/10/2026