Anthropic · Claude · China · Iran · Axios
Governments are turning to Claude to automate spying
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State-run surveillance operations around the world are using Claude to streamline their operations, Anthropic said in a threat report released Thursday.
Key facts
- The barriers for governments interested in spying on dissidents, politicians, journalists and human rights activists are getting lower as AI models get more powerful
- Anthropic is seeing AI move from an experimental tool into the everyday bureaucracy of state surveillance
- AI tools are making state-backed surveillance cheaper and more efficient, rather than fundamentally changing who governments target, Jacob Klein, head of threat intelligence at Anthropic, told Axios
- The surveillance use cases aren't hypothetical anymore, and Anthropic expects AI capabilities to keep improving
Summary
The barriers for governments interested in spying on dissidents, politicians, journalists and human rights activists are getting lower as AI models get more powerful. Anthropic found people linked to governments in Mali, China and Iran using various Claude models to streamline their surveillance operations. In Mali, a single consultant working for national security authorities used Claude to create a system that collects data from the country's mobile operators and builds dossiers about people. Anthropic also disclosed another case where Iranian actors used Claude to build and deploy a malicious Firefox browser extension that "harvested users' identities from social networks.