AI Incident Database
Browse AI incidents
Every incident record (metadata only) from the weekly snapshot of 2026-09-07. Filter, then export the selection with its licence attached; each row links to the full record and its reports.
-
UK Visa Streamline Algorithm Allegedly Discriminated Based on Nationality AIID ↗
UK Home Office's algorithm to assess visa application risks explicitly considered nationality, allegedly caused candidates to face more scrutiny and discrimination.
-
Tinder's Personalized Pricing Algorithm Found to Offer Higher Prices for Older Users AIID ↗
Tinder’s personalized pricing was found by Consumers International to consider age as a major determinant of pricing, and could be considered a direct discrimination based on age, according to anti-discrimination law experts.
-
Oracle's Algorithmic Data Processing System Alleged as Unlawful and Violating Privacy Rights AIID ↗
Oracle's automated system involving algorithmic data processing was alleged in a lawsuit to have been unlawfully collecting personal data from millions of people and violating their privacy rights.
-
Facebook Automated Year-in-Review Highlights Showed Users Painful Memories AIID ↗
Facebook’s “Year in Review” algorithm which compiled content in users’ past year as highlights inadvertently showed painful and unwanted memories to users, including death of family member.
-
Employee Automatically Terminated by Computer Program AIID ↗
An employee was laid off, allegedly by an artificially intelligent personnel system, and blocked from access to the building and computer systems without their knowledge.
-
Uber Deployed Secret Program To Deny Local Authorities Rides AIID ↗
Uber developed a secret program "Greyball" which prevented known law enforcement officers in areas where its service violated regulations from receiving rides.
-
US DHS’s Opaque Vetting Software Allegedly Relied on Poor-Quality Data and Discriminated against Immigrants AIID ↗
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)’s ATLAS software used in vetting immigration requests was condemned by advocacy groups as a threat to naturalized citizens for its secretive algorithmic decision-making, reliance on poor quality data and unknown sources, and alleged discrimination of immigrants using biometric and sensitive information.
-
Uber Autonomous Cars Running Red Lights AIID ↗
Uber vehicles equipped with technology allowing for autonomous driving running red lights in San Francisco street testing.
-
Kronos Scheduling Algorithm Allegedly Caused Financial Issues for Starbucks Employees AIID ↗
Kronos’s scheduling algorithm and its use by Starbucks managers allegedly negatively impacted financial and scheduling stability for Starbucks employees, which disadvantaged wage workers.
-
Robot kills worker at German Volkswagen plant AIID ↗
A Volkswagen plant robot "crushed to death" a worker by pinning him to a metal plate.
-
Tech Companies Reportedly Influenced Gig Workers' Behaviors Using Algorithms to Vary Pay for Same Amount of Work AIID ↗
Amazon and Uber were alleged in a multiyear ethnographic study using algorithmic systems based on gig workers' data to vary pay, such as by offering them lower wages for the same amount of work.
-
Misreading of an Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Unverified by Police, Resulting in Traffic Stop in Missouri AIID ↗
An automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera misread a 7 as a 2 and incorrectly alerted the local police about a stolen Oldsmobile car, which was allegedly not able to be verified by an officer before a traffic stop was effected on a BMW in Kansas City suburb.
-
Facebook's Auto-Generated Targeting Ad Categories Contained Anti-Semitic Options AIID ↗
Facebook's automated advertising categories generated using users' declared interests contained anti-Semitic categories such as "Jew hater" and "How to burn Jews" which were listed as fields of study.
-
Nest Smoke Alarm Erroneously Stops Alarming AIID ↗
In testing, Google Nest engineers demonstrated that the Nest Wave feature of their Nest Protect: Smoke + CO Alarm could inadvertently silence genuine alarms.
-
ETS Used Allegedly Flawed Voice Recognition Evidence to Accuse and Assess Scale of Cheating, Causing Thousands to be Deported from the UK AIID ↗
International testing organization ETS admits voice recognition as evidence of cheating for thousands of previous TOEIC test-takers that reportedly included wrongfully accused people, causing them to be deported without an appeal process or seeing their incriminating evidence.
-
Excessive Automated Monitoring Alerts Ignored by Staff, Resulting in Private Data Theft of Seventy Million Target Customers AIID ↗
Alerts about a Target data breach were ignored by Minneapolis Target’s staff reportedly due to them being included with many other potential false alerts, and due to some of the company’s network infiltration alerting systems being off to reduce such false alerts, causing private data theft for millions of customers.
-
Michigan's Unemployment Benefits Algorithm MiDAS Issued False Fraud Claims to Thousands of People AIID ↗
Michigan’s MiDAS system falsely accused over 34,000 people of unemployment fraud from 2013 to 2015, which reportedly caused financial ruin for many. The automated system was designed to cut costs, but it adjudicated fraud cases without human oversight. That led to an 85% error rate. Victims faced wage garnishments, some lost homes, and some faced bankruptcy. Despite early warnings, Michigan’s UIA defended MiDAS until lawsuits and federal pressure forced reforms. Legislators have been seeking com
-
Facial Recognition Researchers Allegedly Used YouTube Videos of Transgender People Without Consent AIID ↗
YouTube videos of transgender people used by researchers to study facial recognition during gender transitions were allegedly used and distributed without permission.
-
Compromise of National Biometric ID Card System Leads to Reverification and Change of Status AIID ↗
When the leader of the Afghan Taliban was found possessing a valid ID card in the Pakistani national biometric identification database system, Pakistan launch a national re-verification campaign that is linked to numerous changes in recognition status and loss of services.
-
Coffee Meets Bagel’s Algorithm Reported by Users Disproportionately Showing Them Matches of Their Own Ethnicities Despite Selecting “No Preference” AIID ↗
Users selecting “no preference” were shown by Coffee Meets Bagels’s matching algorithm more potential matches with the same ethnicity, which was acknowledged and justified by its founder as a means to maximize connection rate without sufficient user information.
-
Sexist and Racist Google Adsense Advertisements AIID ↗
Advertisements chosen by Google Adsense are reported as producing sexist and racist results.
-
NJ Transit's Use of Modeling Software Miscalculated Storm Surge Threat Level AIID ↗
New Jersey Transit's use of a federal government storm modeling software underestimated the threat of storm surges to the Meadows Maintenance Complex, leaving millions of dollars worth of equipment in the rail yard before Hurricane Sandy struck.
-
UT Austin's GRADE Algorithm Reportedly Reduced Review of Lower-Scored PhD Applicants Amid Bias Concerns AIID ↗
From the 2013 through 2019 admissions cycles, UT Austin's Department of Computer Science used GRADE, a statistical machine-learning system trained on past admissions decisions, to score and organize PhD applications. Critics said the system could reproduce historical admissions inequities and reduce attention to lower-scored applicants, while UT Austin said human reviewers still evaluated each file and later discontinued the tool.
-
Police Departments Reported ShotSpotter as Unreliable and Wasteful AIID ↗
ShotSpotter algorithmic systems locating gunshots were reported by police departments for containing high false positive rates and wasting police resources, prompting discontinuation.
-
Chicago Police's Strategic Subject List Reportedly Biased Along Racial Lines AIID ↗
The Chicago Police Department reportedly used person-based predictive policing models, including the Strategic Subject List and Crime and Victimization Risk Model, to assign violence-risk scores to hundreds of thousands of residents. Official and media reports alleged that the program gave police a mathematically fragile basis for treating heavily policed residents as future victims or suspects, with Black Chicago residents especially exposed to the consequences of that scoring.
-
Police Reportedly Deployed ShotSpotter Sensors Disproportionately in Neighborhoods of Color AIID ↗
Police departments disproportionately placed ShotSpotter sensors in black and brown neighborhoods, which is denounced by communities for allegedly creating dangerous situations, such as one involving in Adam Toledo's death.
-
New York City Reportedly Released Disputed Value-Added Teacher Ratings for Thousands of Teachers AIID ↗
After a legal dispute over public-records requests, the New York City Department of Education released Teacher Data Reports that used a value-added statistical model to rate thousands of public-school teachers based on estimated student test-score growth. News outlets published the ratings in February 2012, and teachers, unions, and analysts disputed the scores as imprecise and potentially misleading, citing large error margins, limited samples, and apparent roster-linkage errors.
-
Google Instant's Allegedly 'Anti-Semitic' Results Lead To Lawsuit In France AIID ↗
The organizations SOS Racisme, Union of Jewish Students of France, Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Among Peoples are suing Google due to its autocomplete software suggesting "jewish" when the names of certain public figures were searched on the platform.
-
Major Universities Are Reportedly Using Race as a 'High Impact Predictor' of Student Success AIID ↗
Several major universities are reportedly using a tool that uses race as one factor to predict student success.
-
Image Classification of Battle Tanks AIID ↗
A potentially apocryphal story in which an image classifier was produced to differentiate types of battle tanks, but the resulting model keyed in on environmental attributes rather than tank attributes
-
Apple Tweaked App Store Ranking Algorithms, Allegedly Resulted in Demotion of Local Apps in China AIID ↗
Following Apple’s changes in ranking algorithm in its iTunes App Store, apps by allegedly reputable companies and local startups in China experienced significant drops in ranking order.
-
Defamation via AutoComplete AIID ↗
Google's autocomplete feature alongside its image search results resulted in the defamation of people and businesses.
-
2010 Market Flash Crash AIID ↗
A modified algorithm was able to cause dramatic price volatility and disrupted trading in the US stock exchange.
-
Algorithmic Teacher Evaluation Program Reportedly Failed to Improve Student Outcomes and Was Alleged to Have Harmed Teachers AIID ↗
Gates Foundation-funded Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching Initiative's algorithmic program to assess teacher performance reportedly failed to achieve its goals for student outcomes, particularly for minority students, and was criticized for potentially causing harm against teachers.
-
Unverified Misreading by Automated Plate Reader Led to Traffic Stop and Restraint of an Innocent Person at Gunpoint in California AIID ↗
In San Francisco, an automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera misread a number as belonging to a stolen vehicle having the wrong make, but its photo was not visually confirmed by the police due to poor quality and allegedly despite multiple chances prior to making a traffic stop, causing an innocent person to be pulled over at gunpoint and restrained in handcuffed.
-
IRS Audited Black Taxpayers More Frequently Reportedly Due to Algorithm AIID ↗
The IRS was auditing Black taxpayers more frequently than other groups allegedly due to the design of their algorithms, focusing on easier-to-conduct audits which inadvertently correlated with the group's pattern of tax filing errors.
-
Machine Personal Assistants Failed to Maintain Social Norms AIID ↗
During an experiment of software personal assistants at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California (USC), researchers found that the assistants violated the privacy of their principals and were unable to respect the social norms of the office.
-
Amazon Censors Gay Books AIID ↗
Amazon's book store "cataloging error" led to books containing gay and lesbian themes to lose their sales ranking, therefore losing visibility on the sales platform.
-
Algorithm Assessing Risk Faced by Victims of Gender Violence Misclassified Low-Risk Cases, Allegedly Leading to Homicide of Women and Children in Spain AIID ↗
In Spain, the algorithm that assesses recidivism risk in gender violence, VioGén, has allegedly critically underestimated the level of risk in a series of cases that ended in homicide of women and children since its first deployment.
-
Automated Adult Content Detection Tools Showed Bias against Women Bodies AIID ↗
Automated content moderation tools to detect sexual explicitness or "raciness" reportedly exhibited bias against women bodies, resulting in suppression of reach despite not breaking platform policies.
-
Virginia Courts’ Algorithmic Recidivism Risk Assessment Failed to Lower Incarceration Rates AIID ↗
Virginia courts’ use of algorithmic predictions of future offending risks were found by researchers failing to reduce incarceration rates, showed racial and age disparities in risk scores and its application, and neither exacerbated or ameliorated historical racial differences in sentencing.
-
Target Suggested Maternity-Related Advertisements to a Teenage Girl's Home, Allegedly Correctly Predicting Her Pregnancy via Algorithm AIID ↗
Target recommended maternity-related items to a family in Atlanta via ads, allegedly predicting their teenage daughter’s pregnancy before her father did, although critics have called into question the predictability of the algorithm and the authenticity of its claims.
-
Patriot Missile System Misclassified US Navy Aircraft, Killing Pilot Upon Approval to Fire AIID ↗
US Navy's Patriot missile system misidentified an American Navy F/A-18C Hornet as an enemy projectile, prompting an operator to fire two missiles at the aircraft, which killed the pilot.
-
US Air Force's Patriot Missile Mistakenly Launched at Ally Fighter Jet, Killing Two AIID ↗
Acting on the recommendation of their Patriot missile system, American Air Force mistakenly launched the missile at an ally UK Tornado fighter jet, which killed two crew members on board.
-
Kidney Testing Method Allegedly Underestimated Risk of Black Patients AIID ↗
Decades-long use of the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) method to test kidney function which considers race has been criticized by physicians and medical students for its racist history and inaccuracy against Black patients.
-
St George's Hospital Medical School allegedly Automated Admissions with Discriminatory Results AIID ↗
From 1982 to 1986, St George's Hospital Medical School used a program to automate a portion of their admissions process that allegedly discriminated against women and members of ethnic minorities.
-
Inefficiencies in the United States Resident Matching Program AIID ↗
Alvin Roth, a Ph.D at the University of Pittsburgh, describes the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) and suggests future changes that are needed in the algorithm used to match recently graduated medical students to their residency programs.
-
Error in Pepsi's Number Generation System Led to Decades-Long Damages in the Philippines AIID ↗
Pepsi's number generation system determining daily winners in its Number Fever promotion in the Philippines mistakenly produced a number held by thousands which resulted in riots, deaths, conspiracy theories, and decades of lawsuits.
-
Nuclear False Alarm AIID ↗
An alert of five incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles was properly identified as a false-positive by the Soviet Union operator Stanislov Petrov.
Informational only, not legal advice. Verify every claim against the linked official sources and consult qualified counsel before acting.
Frequently asked questions
- What is recorded in each incident?
- What happened, when, who was involved as developer or deployer, who was harmed, the sectors and countries affected, and the domain and subdomain the harm falls under. Incidents are mirrored from the AI Incident Database and each links back to its source record.
- Does an incident mean wrongdoing was proven?
- No. These are reported incidents, not findings of liability. Entities named in a report are named as reported, allegations are marked as alleged, and nothing here is a legal determination.
- How current is the incident data?
- It syncs directly from the AI Incident Database several times a day, so a new incident usually appears within hours. Each record carries the date it was last synced, and the snapshot date is shown on the page.
- Does this page include the full incident reports?
- No. The report texts are outside the licence this data is shared under, so only the metadata and the classifications appear here. Every row links to the original incident record, which carries the reports themselves.