Character.AI allowed a user to create an AI chatbot using the name and yearbook photo of Jennifer Ann Crecente, an 18-year-old murder victim from 2006, without her family's consent, causing significant emotional distress to her father and uncle when they discovered it through a Google alert.
In October 2024, Drew Crecente discovered through a Google alert that his murdered daughter Jennifer Ann Crecente's name and yearbook photo had been used to create an AI chatbot on Character.AI without permission. Jennifer was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 2006 during her senior year of high school. The chatbot was created by a user and described Jennifer as 'a knowledgeable and friendly AI character' and falsely portrayed her as a video game journalist. The profile had been accessed by approximately 69 users before it was discovered. Drew Crecente's brother Brian, founder of gaming news site Kotaku, brought attention to the issue on social media, calling it 'fucking disgusting.' Character.AI responded by removing the chatbot, stating it violated their impersonation policies, but provided no direct communication to the family. The company has over 20 million monthly users and recently struck a $2.5 billion deal with Google. Character.AI allows users to create chatbots of real or fictional characters, and the platform hosts many unauthorized personas of public figures and private citizens.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that memorize and leak sensitive personal data or infer private information about individuals without their consent. Unexpected or unauthorized sharing of data and information can compromise user expectation of privacy, assist identity theft, or cause loss of confidential intellectual property.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Other
Without clearly specifying the intentionality
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed