AI Risk Wire

Cases › made things up › LR-2026-0470

Newfoundland and Labrador government reports with false citations thought to be AI-generated, procurement overhauled

Preliminary Why: Publisher not yet named · subject to change

Status: fix reported

Severity minor
Reported 11 Mar 2026

No source states: loss or records, developer and model, agent tool, could do, deployer, industry.

Severity minor: test met: the false citations were contained to reports submitted to one deployer, the Newfoundland and Labrador government, with no third party touched stated in the sources.

Two Newfoundland and Labrador government reports, one an education plan from the Education Accord team and the other a health-care human resources plan prepared by Deloitte Canada, were found to contain citations to sources that appeared not to exist, thought to be generated by artificial intelligence. Deloitte said it used AI to support a small number of research citations and had revised the document with citation corrections. The contract for the health study contained no provisions on AI use. The province then changed its procurement forms so vendors must state whether and how they use AI, and the province can audit that use. The government is reviewing options related to compensation for the mistakes in the Deloitte report.

What happened

1 · What it was doingA human resources plan for health-care staff was prepared for the provincial Health Department by Deloitte Canada.
2 · What went wrongCitations referring to sources that appeared not to exist were found in reports submitted to the former Liberal government.
3 · How it was caughtRadio-Canada and The Independent reported the citations.

What was done

The province changed its request-for-proposal forms to state its AI policies, and can audit vendor AI use.
Fix reported

“Procurement request-for-proposal forms changed to require vendors to state whether and how they use AI, and the province can audit that use”

Risks

Made-up output relied on
Primary36 incidents

Read from the sources; not yet reviewed by a person.

Controls

Not yet read for controls. Controls that mitigate the primary risk:

Application

Grounding and fact checks · Human approval for high-impact actions · Output filtering and redaction · People told they are dealing with AI

Evidence

No source states: what it reached or did, when it happened, when it was found, how many records were exposed, the direct loss, a count of the other parties affected, any court case, the cause, what set it off.

Show the full account: 3 items from the primary sources

What happened, in order

  1. 2023 The contract for the human resources study was signed by the previous Liberal government and Deloitte.
  2. December Newfoundland and Labrador began changing its procurement documents.

Not dated in the sources:

  • Radio-Canada and The Independent reported citations to sources that appeared not to exist in government reports.
Show every field, with its source and grade

What happened

Earliest source we hold
2026-03-11
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
What was done
Procurement request-for-proposal forms changed to require vendors to state whether and how they use AI, and the province can audit that use
C one secondary source states it
What went wrong
made things up
C one secondary source states it
primary risk
RK14
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Impact

Severity
minor
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Why this severity
test met: the false citations were contained to reports submitted to one deployer, the Newfoundland and Labrador government, with no third party touched stated in the sources.
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Notes on gaps

The only dated disclosure is the 2026-03-11 article date, which is not treated as the disclosure date. Compensation is under review, not decided.

LR-2026-0470 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON