Vendors and modelsDeployer

University of Cologne AI failures

Every documented AI failure involving University of Cologne on the AI Failure Index, classified by the mechanism that broke.

Failures
1
Highest severity
Medium
Span
2025
Failure modes
1
By failure mode
By severity
FI-0168Public SectorMedium
Tool Misuse

A disabled ChatGPT consent toggle instantly deleted a Cologne professor's two years of history

In August 2025, University of Cologne plant scientist Marcel Bucher turned off ChatGPT's 'Improve the model for everyone' data consent option, which immediately and irreversibly deleted his entire two-year chat history containing grant applications, teaching materials, and publication drafts. OpenAI confirmed the deletion was by design under its 'privacy by design' policy and offered no recovery. The incident was first reported by Nature in January 2026 and raised questions about whether bundling training consent withdrawal with data destruction complies with EU GDPR data portability requirements.

Confidence
Medium (multi-source)
University of Cologne3 sourcesPressPublicAug 2025

See how Realm catches these failure modes at runtime, before they reach production.

Explore Realm Labs