Georgia secretary of state downplaying Anthropic AI bot that accessed election data

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — An artificial intelligence bot associated with Anthropic accessed publicly available voter data through Georgia’s data hub, state officials confirmed.

The bot did not access the state’s voter file or voter registration system, the company and the secretary of state’s office said.

“This isn’t news,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “Anthropic’s AI agent accessed information anyone can find publicly. Accessing public information is not a hack, and pretending otherwise is reckless and dangerous.”

“This was publicly available data accessed through our data hub,” said Jordan Fuchs, Georgia deputy secretary of state, earlier on Monday.

Here is a timeline of events, according to the secretary of state:

• Oct. 8: Anthropic contacted the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office to express concerns about its AI agent accessing the state’s publicly available data on Georgia’s Data Hub.
• Oct. 8: The Secretary of State’s Office investigated and quickly concluded that the AI agent had simply accessed publicly available information through the state’s Data Hub.
• Oct. 9: The White House contacted the Secretary of State’s Office about Anthropic’s AI agent. The Secretary of State’s Office shared its findings with the White House and made clear “this was not the voter registration system through our public facing Data Hub.”
• Oct. 16: The Secretary of State’s Office contacted Anthropic to discuss the findings of its investigation.
• Oct. 16: The Secretary of State’s Office contacted The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to discuss the findings of the ongoing investigation, waiting on the final report.
• Oct. 25: Axios published a story about the AI agent accessing “publicly available voter info.”
• Oct. 26: Anthropic confirms to the Secretary of State’s Office that its agent had not accessed Georgia’s voter list or bypassed a paywall. It had only accessed information available through the state’s public Data Hub.

“Georgia is consistently recognized as having some of the most secure elections in the country, with voting systems not connected to the internet designed to prevent fraud, paper-ballots, and risk-limiting audits,” Raffenperger said. “Twisting this into a security scare for clicks undermines confidence in our elections and is absolutely shameful.

“Georgia has spent years strengthening election security while making election data more transparent and accessible to the public,” said Raffensperger, who mounted an ultimately unsuccessful GOP gubernatorial campaign earlier this year.

On Monday, the artificial intelligence giant filed papers to sell shares to the public for the first time, according to the Associated Press. The filing sets up the San Francisco company for a Wall Street debut next month in what could be the biggest ever initial public sale of stock.

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