{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0530","record_version":1,"title":"Lawsuit says Perplexity Incognito Mode is a sham","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":43.1,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":2.88,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: Ars Technica · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":1,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"1 report: Ars Technica · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"0cc60c9162026e6b822da4a44f695b4d9f6347f9abad1afb83ed9db3f5643528"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":null,"safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-04-02","incident_class":"privacy_leakage","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"Perplexity's AI search engine lets users run chat sessions, and a proposed class action filed by an anonymous user alleges that these chats were often shared in full with Google and Meta without users' knowledge or consent. The complaint says opening prompts and clicked follow-up questions were always shared, and that a shared URL could let third parties access the entire conversation. It further alleges that chats were shared along with personally identifiable information even when users turned on Perplexity's Incognito Mode, which the lawsuit calls a sham. The suit targets Perplexity, Google and Meta. These are allegations in a lawsuit; the sources do not describe any court ruling, any response from the companies, or any technical fix.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null,"primary_risk":"RK15"},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"major","severity_because":"Test met: unbounded scope stated. The complaint alleges the sharing happened to every user, and that chats reached Meta and Google (two third parties). These are allegations in a lawsuit, not established facts.","harm_class":[],"affected_description":"Every user, subscribed or not, allegedly affected; the complaint alleges enormous volumes of sensitive information from both groups were shared","protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":["email addresses","personally identifiable information"],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/perplexitys-incognito-mode-is-a-sham-lawsuit-says/","publisher":"Ars Technica","date":"2026-04-02","type":"press","title":"Perplexity’s “Incognito Mode” is a “sham,” lawsuit says - Ars Technica","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report","independence":"independent"}],"per_field_confidence":{"event.incident_class":"C","impact.affected_description":"C","impact.data_categories_exposed":"C","impact.severity":"D","impact.severity_because":"D","event.primary_risk":"D","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","context.country":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Even paid users who turned on the ‘Incognito’ feature still had their conversations shared with Meta and Google, along with their email addresses and other identifiers that allowed Meta and Google to personally identify them."}],"impact.affected_description":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"“This happened to every user regardless of whether or not they signed up for a Perplexity account,” the lawsuit alleged, while stressing that “enormous volumes of sensitive information from both subscribed and non-subscribed users” are shared."}],"impact.data_categories_exposed":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Even paid users who turned on the ‘Incognito’ feature still had their conversations shared with Meta and Google, along with their email addresses and other identifiers that allowed Meta and Google to personally identify them."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"“This happened to every user regardless of whether or not they signed up for a Perplexity account,” the lawsuit alleged, while stressing that “enormous volumes of sensitive information from both subscribed and non-subscribed users” are shared."}],"impact.severity_because":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"“This happened to every user regardless of whether or not they signed up for a Perplexity account,” the lawsuit alleged, while stressing that “enormous volumes of sensitive information from both subscribed and non-subscribed users” are shared."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Perplexity’s AI search engine encourages users to go deeper with their prompts by engaging in chat sessions that a lawsuit has alleged are often shared in their entirety with Google and Meta without users’ knowledge or consent."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Using developer tools, the lawsuit found that opening prompts are always shared, as are any follow-up questions the search engine asks that a user clicks on."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Their initial prompts are shared with “a URL through which the entire conversation may be accessed by third parties like Meta and Google.”"},{"source_index":0,"quote":"That mode, the lawsuit charged, is a “sham.”"},{"source_index":0,"quote":"His lawsuit targets all three companies, accusing them of putting profits over users’ privacy rights by seizing sensitive data that users did not realize would be shared."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"All harm claims are allegations from a lawsuit, not established facts; the sources do not report a court finding or a company response. No autonomous agent is described, so no agent or failure_class fields were set. The sources name no specific safeguard that held, failed or was missing, so links are empty. No remediation is reported. The filing date is only 'Tuesday' and the article date (2026-04-02) is not a disclosure date for the incident, so no event dates were set. Country and deployment context are not stated. Developer is taken as Perplexity from the article. Severity 'major' is my judgement from the stated 'every user' scope; the sources give no bounded count of affected users. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (1 report: Ars Technica · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":null,"org_size_band":null,"country":"unknown","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"narrative":{"steps":[{"step":"went_wrong","text":"The complaint alleges that initial prompts were shared through a URL that third parties such as Meta and Google could use to access the whole conversation.","quote":"Their initial prompts are shared with “a URL through which the entire conversation may be accessed by third parties like Meta and Google.”","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"reached","text":"The complaint alleges that Incognito Mode did not stop conversations from being shared with Meta and Google, including for paid users.","quote":"“‘Incognito’ mode does nothing to protect users from having their conversations shared with Meta and Google,” the complaint said.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"},{"step":"caught","text":"The lawsuit says developer tools were used to find that opening prompts and clicked follow-up questions were always shared.","quote":"Using developer tools, the lawsuit found that opening prompts are always shared, as are any follow-up questions the search engine asks that a user clicks on.","source_index":0,"grade":"C"}],"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/perplexitys-incognito-mode-is-a-sham-lawsuit-says/"]}}