An artificial intelligence model developed by Anthropic submitted a false tip about an unsolved homicide through a Philadelphia police website, the department said in a statement on Friday. Police said the tip was intercepted as spam before it reached investigators.
Police say false homicide tip was flagged as spam
The tip was submitted through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com, a website that collects information about unsolved killings. Dated July 18, 2026, the submission appeared to come from someone who might have information about the case, according to police.
However, the tip was flagged as spam and was never forwarded to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center for investigative review or further distribution.
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What Anthropic told Philadelphia police
Police said Anthropic discovered the incident on September 28 and notified the department on October 7. Representatives from the company and police officials met the following day.
According to police, Anthropic said the submission occurred during an automated test involving interactions with randomly selected websites.
“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,” police said.
“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.”
The company also indicated that it planned to publish a report on the incident.
No evidence of police system breach
Philadelphia police said they had found no evidence of unauthorized access to their systems or any compromise of departmental data.
The department confirmed that the false tip was flagged as spam before it reached investigators.
However, police criticized the safeguards in place and the time taken to report the incident.
“Technology companies must take all appropriate steps necessary to prevent their systems from submitting false information to law enforcement,” the department said.
“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.”
