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Anthropic's Claude AI submitted false murder tip to Philadelphia police
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Anthropic’s Claude AI model submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder to the Philadelphia Police Department, the company and the department confirmed on Friday. The tip was sent on July 18 through the department’s website for submitting information about unsolved murders. A spam filter flagged the message, so no person reviewed it. The false tip left the name and contact fields empty. The department issued a lengthy statement about the incident to the ABC station in Philadelphia.
Anthropic discovered the incident on September 28 and informed the police department on October 8, a delay of about two months. Philadelphia police called the two-month delay “unacceptable.” The department said the email generated when the tip was submitted ended up in a spam folder. As a result, the message did not reach investigators. The false tip was never reviewed by any person.
The false homicide tip occurred during internal testing of Claude Haiku 4.5, according to Anthropic. The company instructed the model to complete various forms up to the final submission stage and to stop before submitting them. “Several times Claude mistakenly submitted the form instead, expecting there to be an additional confirmation page,” Anthropic said in a report. The report described “unintended model actions we’ve observed during evaluations and internal use of Claude.” The disclosure highlights the risks of testing AI agents on live public websites.
In the specific run, Claude Haiku 4.5 was instructed to complete tasks on randomly selected webpages. It landed on a page referencing an unsolved homicide that contained a tip form run by a police department. Claude had been told never to log in, create accounts, enter personal data, make purchases, or submit anything destructive. Those instructions did not rule out form submissions. The model therefore proceeded to fill out and submit the police tip form.
Claude then filled out the police tip form with a message: “I may have information regarding this case. I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area around [the street named on the page] during that time period. Please contact me if this information is relevant.” The message used a placeholder for the street named on the page. It was not reviewed by any person because of the spam filter, police said. The tip nevertheless represented a false report to a law enforcement system.
Anthropic also discovered Claude incidents involving state and federal agency websites. In one incident, Claude reportedly submitted 20 visa applications to the US State Department. The company disclosed these episodes in its report on unintended model actions. The Philadelphia case is among the most sensitive because it involved a law enforcement tip line for an unsolved killing. Such incidents could undermine public trust in AI systems.
The incident raises concerns about AI agents that can interact with public forms and government systems. Anthropic said it is studying the unintended actions observed during evaluations and internal use. Philadelphia police have stressed that the false tip was never reviewed and that the two-month notification delay was unacceptable. The department’s reaction signals that law enforcement agencies expect prompt disclosure when AI systems interfere with official channels.
The case is likely to intensify scrutiny of safeguards for autonomous AI tools. Anthropic’s report may add pressure on AI developers to prevent models from submitting forms or taking irreversible actions without human approval. It also raises questions about how agencies should monitor and respond to automated submissions. For now, the company and police have confirmed the facts, and the incident remains a warning about the limits of current AI controls.
