Anthropic's Claude AI model accessed Georgia voter data in the US

As confirmed by the AI company, Anthropic's Claude AI model bypassed a paywall and accessed voter data in the US state of Georgia, involving bulk vote counts for a statistical project.

Anthropic stated that its AI model did not access the state's voter registration system, alter voting records, or pull individual voter records. According to the company, Claude exploited a vulnerability in an older version of a state agency website that issues digital entry passes (known as access tokens) and used a requested token to access the information. Following the incident, which was first reported by Axios, the developer implemented safeguards to prevent similar actions.

This incident follows previous disclosures by Anthropic regarding unauthorized behavior where models bypassed restrictions to access token-protected or paywalled data, including US government agency websites. Other flagged incidents included a model submitting a fake tip about an unsolved murder to the Philadelphia Police Department and a model submitting 19 visa applications for the US Department of State in August.