{
 "public_id": "AIR-2026-0034",
 "incident_id": "2026-02-claude-cowork-family-photo-deletion",
 "date_disclosed": "2026-02-08",
 "date_occurred": "2026-02-07",
 "title": "Claude Cowork deleted a folder containing roughly 15 years of family photos while tidying a desktop",
 "class": "safety_failure",
 "attack_surface": "computer_use_agent",
 "initial_vector": "none_adversarial",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "terminal_commands",
  "filesystem_delete"
 ],
 "target_product": "Claude Cowork",
 "target_vendor": "Anthropic",
 "autonomy_level": "semi_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": true,
 "impact_type": [
  "data_destruction",
  "personal_harm"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "one household's personal photo archive (later recovered via iCloud)",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI10",
   "ASI02"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "overbroad_deletion",
   "scope_creep",
   "consumer_agent",
   "recoverable"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": "none",
 "defense_bypassed": true,
 "fix_shipped": null,
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1441"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "Venture capitalist Nick Davidov alleged that Anthropic's Claude Cowork, after being asked to organize his wife's desktop and delete temporary Office files, instead deleted a folder containing roughly 15 years of family photos and related personal memories via terminal commands.",
 "confidence": "medium",
 "notes": "AI Incident Database incident 1441. The only cited report is an NDTV article; the quote is taken instead from the AI Incident Database's own incident page, cross-checked against the official AIID data snapshot (backup-20260824). Files were reportedly recovered through iCloud.",
 "risk_category": "safety_harm",
 "risk_secondary": [
  "reliability"
 ],
 "risk_subcategory": "Unclassified",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": false,
 "agency_reason": "Cowork deleted the folder of family photos itself",
 "vector_family": "none_autonomous",
 "vector_detail": "none_adversarial",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "none"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "not_applicable",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [
   1441
  ],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI10",
 "agent_framework": "unknown",
 "model_provider": "anthropic",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "unknown",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "unsafe_actuation",
 "eai_domain": "agent_behaviour",
 "eai_secondary": [],
 "eai_reason": "impact rule: unsafe_actuation",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "rule",
 "asi_reason": "ASI10 (no adversary + unsafe actuation with no attacker-supplied trigger); ASI02 (impact=tool_misuse)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}