published a report <\/a>about this and other instances of unintended model behavior late Friday stating its agents accessed several federal, state and local government websites.<\/p>\nAnthropic says it notified the White House and each agency involved. The company believes the incidents detailed today had minimal real- world impacts and were not as serious as previous breaches.<\/p>\n
Here is the full statement from Philadelphia police:<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia Police Department is informing the public about a false homicide tip submitted by an Anthropic artificial intelligence model through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com. <\/p>\n
Anthropic notified PPD of the incident on October 7, and department personnel immediately sought to meet with company representatives, which happened on October 8. <\/p>\n
Anthropic has advised that it plans to publish a report describing this incident and other instances of unintended model behavior today. <\/p>\n
Philadelphia Police are providing this information to the public ahead of that publication in the interests of full government transparency and accountability.<\/p>\n
The AI submission was made through the Department’s public tip form. <\/p>\n
Based on the information available and PPD’s review, there is no indication that this incident involved any unauthorized access to police systems or a compromise of department data. <\/p>\n
The submission was flagged as spam and was never forwarded to the Real-Time Crime Center for investigative vetting or dissemination.<\/p>\n
PPD is coordinating with the City’s Law Department, Office of Innovation and Technology, and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s executive team. <\/p>\n
Based on the information reviewed to date, the department’s findings are consistent with Anthropic’s account of how the submission interacted with the website.<\/p>\n
According to Anthropic, its model was conducting a test involving interactions with randomly selected websites when it accessed PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com and submitted false information concerning an unsolved homicide. <\/p>\n
The submission, dated July 18, 2026, at 11:27 p.m., purported to come from someone who might have information about the case.<\/p>\n
Anthropic told PPD that it discovered the incident on September 28, terminated the automated testing process responsible for the submission and instituted an additional validation mechanism for future testing. <\/p>\n
Following the October 8 briefing, PPD located the submission in the website’s tip records and confirmed that the corresponding email remained in spam.<\/p>\n
The department’s regular investigative process for crime tips requires human review and vetting before any tips are disseminated for investigative follow-up. <\/p>\n
Regardless of who submits information or how it reaches the department, a tip is a lead to assess – not an established fact. <\/p>\n
Investigators evaluate its credibility and seek corroborating evidence. An automated submission does not bypass that process.<\/p>\n
Those PPD safeguards limited the impact of this incident. They do not diminish the seriousness of an AI system presenting fabricated information as though it came from a person with knowledge of a homicide. <\/p>\n
Unsolved cases involve real victims, grieving families and investigators working to secure answers. <\/p>\n
Technology companies must take all appropriate steps necessary to prevent their systems from submitting false information to law enforcement.<\/p>\n
PPD will review Anthropic’s published report and any additional information relevant to its systems or investigations. The City of Philadelphia takes this incident very seriously. <\/p>\n
The company must strengthen its safeguards to prevent similar incidents from impacting city systems without the city’s knowledge. The two-month delay in detecting and reporting the incident to the City is unacceptable.<\/p>\n
Members of the public should continue to submit legitimate information about unsolved homicides through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com. <\/p>\n
PPD remains committed to carefully evaluating that information and pursuing credible leads on behalf of victims and their families.<\/p>\n
The department and the Parker administration will continue to closely monitor this incident, and will provide more information to the public as soon as it becomes available. <\/p>\n
In addition to our investigation into this incident, the Parker administration will explore all necessary regulatory protections going forward locally along with our state and federal partners.<\/p>\n
The City of Philadelphia under Mayor Parker’s leadership is adopting AI responsibly, and is committed to transparency, careful implementation, and safeguards that reduce errors and protect City systems and residents.
<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — An Anthropic A.I. model submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder through a publicly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[124868,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-303638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-124868","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}