MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Category · 16.02.00

Risk area 2: Information Hazards

Description

"LM predictions that convey true information may give rise to information hazards, whereby the dissemination of private or sensitive information can cause harm [27]. Information hazards can cause harm at the point of use, even with no mistake of the technology user. For example, revealing trade secrets can damage a business, revealing a health diagnosis can cause emotional distress, and revealing private data can violate a person’s rights. Information hazards arise from the LM providing private data or sensitive information that is present in, or can be inferred from, training data. Observed r

From Taxonomy of Risks posed by Language Models (Weidinger2022), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).

Classification

Causal entity
AI

Subdomain definition: AI systems that memorize and leak sensitive personal data or infer private information about individuals without their consent. Unexpected or unauthorized sharing of data and information can compromise user expectation of privacy, assist identity theft, or loss of confidential intellectual property.

Real-world incidents in this subdomain

Browse all incidents in this subdomain

How other frameworks describe this risk

  • Risks to privacy

    International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI (Bengio2024)

  • Risks to privacy

    International AI Safety Report 2025 (Bengio2025)

  • Privacy Leakage

    Risk Taxonomy, Mitigation, and Assessment Benchmarks of Large Language Model Systems (Cui2024)

  • Private Training Data

    Risk Taxonomy, Mitigation, and Assessment Benchmarks of Large Language Model Systems (Cui2024)

  • Memorization in LLMs

    Risk Taxonomy, Mitigation, and Assessment Benchmarks of Large Language Model Systems (Cui2024)

  • Association in LLMs

    Risk Taxonomy, Mitigation, and Assessment Benchmarks of Large Language Model Systems (Cui2024)

  • Privacy Leakage

    Risk Taxonomy, Mitigation, and Assessment Benchmarks of Large Language Model Systems (Cui2024)

  • Privacy and regulation violations

    Navigating the Landscape of AI Ethics and Responsibility (Cunha2023)

Other entries from Weidinger2022