Rogue Anthropic Agent Submitted Fake Tip in Unsolved Homicide Case

Police in Philadelphia have criticized Anthropic after it took more than two months to detect that one of its AI models had submitted false information about an unsolved homicide case. In a statement to local media, the Philadelphia Police Department said it was “unacceptable” that the fake tip had been submitted on July 18, but not discovered until September 28. Anthropic did not pass on the information to police until October 7. “Unsolved cases involve real victims, grieving families and investigators working to secure answers,” police said in a statement. “Technology companies must take all appropriate steps necessary to prevent their systems from submitting false information to law enforcement.” In a report detailing the incident and other examples of unintended model actions, Anthropic said Claude Haiku 4.5 had been tasked with performing example tasks on randomly selected webpages. It had a number of instructions including not logging in or entering personal data, but form submissions had not been ruled out. The model filled out a form on a tips website used by police in Philadelphia, writing, “I may have information regarding this case. I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area around [street associated with case] during that time period. Please contact me if this information is relevant.” Anthropic said that the website did not include a description of the perpetrator, and that its model left contact detail fields empty. The submission was flagged as spam and never passed on to the investigation.