Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, says it identified five cases in which users employed its artificial intelligence models in ways that could support biological weapons development.

The company disclosed this in its latest threat intelligence report published on Thursday, saying the cases were among a range of malicious or potentially harmful activities detected and disrupted on its platform between December 2025 and August 2026.

Anthropic particularly flagged five Claude AI use cases that involved research into areas including chikungunya virus, highly pathogenic avian influenza, orthopoxviruses, venom peptides and toxins.

The company said it had banned the accounts involved and incorporated information from its investigations into its safeguards, enforcement and threat intelligence systems.

However, Anthropic stressed that it was not asserting that the scientists involved intended to cause harm.

“We do not assert that they intended harm, and identifying them or their labs could expose them to harm,” the company said, adding that it would withhold the names of the research institutions, countries and specific biological agents or techniques involved.

Anthropic said the cases demonstrated the difficulty of distinguishing between legitimate scientific research and activities that could be used for harmful purposes.

“Biological misuse is one of the most serious risks of frontier AI models,” the company said, warning that AI could potentially be used to make existing pathogens more dangerous or create new ones.

“The same information that can be used to develop a biological weapon could also be used to develop, for example, a vaccine or a cure for a disease,” the AI giant added.

In the first case, Anthropic said its biological safety classifier blocked a request to help prepare a grant application involving gain-of-function research on chikungunya virus.

The company said its subsequent investigation found that a reseller platform was being used to provide access to Claude to researchers in regions where Anthropic does not offer its services.

The platform also allegedly routed requests rejected by Claude to other AI models with more permissive safeguards.

Anthropic said it banned the associated accounts, worked with partners to take down the relay networks and shared its findings with AI companies and government authorities.

In a second case, the company said a researcher outside the US used Claude over several weeks while planning research involving highly pathogenic avian influenza and its adaptation to mammals.

According to Anthropic, the researcher used Claude for study planning, data analysis, interpretation and prioritisation of experiments, as well as editorial assistance.

The company said its safeguards restricted the researcher to weaker Claude models and that the AI’s contribution was primarily limited to clerical assistance, study ideation and design.

Anthropic said the case nevertheless provided evidence of active research programmes involving pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential.

A third case involved a grant application for orthopoxvirus research at a state-associated infectious disease laboratory. Anthropic said a reseller relay serving more than a dozen customers used Claude to draft the application.

The company said the application involved research into how orthopoxviruses interact with the immune system and was produced using Claude Opus 5 in about an hour.

The fourth and fifth cases involved research into venoms and toxins.

Anthropic said one researcher used Claude to develop an atlas of venom toxin peptides and a generative system for optimising toxin characteristics, with the stated goal of developing therapeutic molecules.

In another case, a researcher used Claude in projects involving the computational redesign of toxins under a national public research programme. Anthropic said the researcher deliberately obscured the identities of some toxins and viral proteins in progress reports.

The company said both accounts were banned in May 2026 for violating its Supported Regions Policy.

Anthropic said the cases highlighted the challenge of regulating AI-assisted biological research because many applications are “dual use”, meaning they can have both beneficial and harmful applications.

Anthropic, however, cautioned against interpreting its findings as evidence that Claude was currently enabling imminent biological threats.

“We take these cases as evidence not of the imminence of biological threats currently uplifted by Claude, but rather as evidence that significant dual-use research efforts are associated with state actors of concern,” the company said.

The report is part of a wider disclosure by Anthropic on the misuse of its AI systems.

The company said its investigations over the past eight months also uncovered cyber operations, surveillance, influence operations, scams and fraud, conventional weapons development and attempts to illicitly distil its models.

The report comes shortly after concerns raised publicly by former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon about the risks posed by increasingly capable AI systems.

PUNCH Online previously reported that Coxon resigned from Anthropic and said “people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Anthropic’s latest report also said it had identified a Russia-linked cyber espionage operation in which Claude was used to automate parts of attacks against organisations in Ukraine and Europe.

Source: punchng.com

FOLLOW US ON:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

PINTEREST

TIKTOK

YOUTUBE

LINKEDIN

INSTAGRAM

The United States has delivered military equipment to the Nigerian Air Force as part of efforts to strengthen the security partnership between both countries and support Nigeria’s counter-terrorism operations.

The United States Africa Command disclosed this in a post on its X handle on Thursday, along with pictures of a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft delivering the equipment.

AFRICOM said the equipment was supplied under a foreign military sales agreement between the two countries.

“PARTNERSHIP IN ACTION: A U.S. Air Force C-17 delivers equipment to the Nigerian Air Force this weekend. The equipment is part of a foreign military sales agreement that furthers the U.S.-Nigerian partnership and will aid in Nigeria’s efforts to counter terrorism in the region,” the command said.

The latest delivery comes against the backdrop of continued military cooperation between Nigeria and the United States, including training and capacity-building programmes.

On August 23, US forces began training Nigerian troops in unmanned aircraft systems, combat casualty care and other military skills at Operating Location Bauchi, as part of efforts to strengthen security cooperation between the two countries.

According to AFRICOM, the training covered combat lifesaver and tactical combat casualty care instruction, weapons familiarisation, camouflage, water treatment and testing, explosive ordnance disposal, small-unit tactics and unmanned aircraft systems.

The command said the training was developed based on the expertise available among US forces and areas identified by their Nigerian counterparts as beneficial.

It added that unmanned aircraft systems generated particular interest among Nigerian forces, with about 10 members of the Nigerian Air Force Special Forces Regiment receiving practical training on operating the systems.

The US personnel also trained the Nigerian troops on techniques for employing unmanned aircraft systems and incorporating information gathered by the systems into military operations.

The development followed AFRICOM’s disclosure in July that the United States had withdrawn most of its troops deployed to Nigeria for a specific counter-terrorism operation, while retaining an intelligence-sharing and security partnership with the country.

Despite the withdrawal, both countries have continued to engage in military cooperation through intelligence sharing, training and other capacity-building initiatives.

Source: punchng.com

FOLLOW US ON:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

PINTEREST

TIKTOK

YOUTUBE

LINKEDIN

INSTAGRAM

Outrage is growing over the right of Nigerians to record police officers while performing their duties in public, as human rights groups and the African Action Congress backed the position of the Nigerian Bar Association against attempts to restrict the practice.

The development followed a recent clash of positions between the NBA President, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, and the Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, over the extent to which members of the public can film police officers.

The NBA president had backed citizens’ right to record police officers performing their duties in public, while calling for clearer rules to protect officers from unnecessary intrusion into their private lives.

The position followed a March 17 judgment of the Federal High Court in Warri, Delta State, which affirmed Nigerians’ constitutional right to record police officers while they perform their duties in public.

Justice Hyeladzira Nganjiwa, in the judgment in a suit filed by a lawyer, Maxwell Uwaifo, also directed police officers to display their names and force numbers during public operations.

Speaking on the controversy on Thursday, the Amnesty International Country Director, Isa Sanusi, said anything capable of obstructing transparency in policing could not be justified.

He said, “It is the duty of the police to tell their men to be decent, to be fair, to be open, to be transparent.

“So if they are transparent and decent, I don’t think they should mind whether people are monitoring them or not.”

Similarly, the General Secretary of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Gerald Katchy, backed the NBA’s position, saying recording police activities was an important tool for accountability.

Katchy said, “In every other clime and in a developed nation, video recording whenever issues of security are concerned is part of the accountability we are pushing for.

“Those who have nothing to hide have no reason to be afraid of being recorded.”

He said recordings could help establish evidence in cases involving alleged police misconduct or resistance to lawful authority.

According to him, the police should instead encourage the use of body-worn cameras by officers to promote professionalism and accountability.

“Filming has helped to establish evidence whenever issues of either misconduct or resistance to authority arise. So, it works in both ways,” he said.

Katchy argued that recording officers should not demoralise properly trained policemen, adding that officers who followed their training and professional rules should have no reason to fear being filmed.

“It’s uncalled-for, maybe, IGP saying that it’s demoralising. The ones it will demoralise are those who have ulterior motives,” he said.

The African Action Congress also condemned the reported restriction, arguing that Nigerians needed the ability to document encounters with police officers, particularly amid concerns over illegal checkpoints and criminals impersonating policemen.

The party said, “From ‘one-chance’ robberies to illegal checkpoints to impersonators in police uniform, Nigerians need to record who stops them, where, and what happens.”

The AAC cited Section 39(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression and the right to receive and impart information.

It said police officers performing public duties in public spaces could not invoke privacy to prevent citizens from documenting their activities.

A public affairs analyst, Dr Rufus Egbagba, however, said the IGP’s position should not be interpreted as an attempt to shield erring officers from accountability.

Egbagba said Disu had not directed that police misconduct should not be recorded or reported, but was calling for responsible engagement with officers performing their lawful duties.

He said officers should be able to perform their duties without unnecessary provocation or obstruction, adding that videos of alleged misconduct should be preserved and submitted through appropriate channels, including the Police Complaint Response Unit.

Egbagba also cautioned against relying solely on social media exposure to determine alleged misconduct, noting that short video clips might not capture the full circumstances surrounding an incident.

He said, “A short video clip may not always capture the full context of an incident: what led up to it, what was said off-camera, or what followed.”

The analyst acknowledged that the police had bad actors whose conduct should not be excused but warned that repeated circulation of misconduct involving a few officers could create the impression that such behaviour represented the entire Nigeria Police Force.

The IGP had earlier expressed concern over the growing practice of recording police officers, saying the development had become demoralising to members of the Force.

Disu, however, acknowledged citizens’ right to record officers while they were performing their duties in public.

“We are not saying they cannot exercise their rights of recording officers in public places while doing their jobs,” he said.

He urged members of the public not to turn police officers into material for social media skits, particularly when the officers were not performing official duties.

The NBA president also acknowledged the need to protect officers’ privacy, particularly when they were off duty.

She cited situations where policemen were recorded while eating or relaxing as examples of conduct that could constitute an invasion of privacy.

However, Badejo-Okusanya distinguished such situations from the recording of officers while carrying out official duties.

She cited the use of body-worn cameras by police officers in the United States as an example of how recording could promote accountability.

“When the US introduced body cams for police officers, it was to promote that,” she said.

She called for clearer rules to define the limits of citizens’ right to record police officers and prevent abuse of the practice.

“We just need to understand the limits,” she said.

The PUNCH reports that Disu, on May 31, 2026, during an interactive session with Crime Correspondents in Abuja, had cautioned content creators, social media users and members of the public against the indiscriminate recording and circulation of police-related videos, warning that such actions could undermine security operations and demoralise officers.

The IG expressed concern over what he described as the growing trend of recording police officers during routine and sensitive operations and posting such content online without proper context.

“Yes, accountability is important, and we remain committed to transparency. However, recordings and public engagements involving police officers must be done responsibly and should not be used to harass officers or undermine operational effectiveness,” he said.

According to him, while the Nigeria Police Force remains committed to accountability, transparency and respect for human rights, public scrutiny must be balanced with operational realities and the welfare of officers.

Source: punchng.com

FOLLOW US ON:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

PINTEREST

TIKTOK

YOUTUBE

LINKEDIN

INSTAGRAM