In an embarrassing courtroom revelation, Israeli police were caught citing fictional laws generated by ChatGPT to justify keeping a suspect's mobile phone. The incident occurred during a hearing where the defense attorney challenged the legal basis of police claims, forcing a police representative to admit the cited statutes were entirely fabricated.
The case involved investigators from Lahav 433 and the Coastal District of the Israeli Police who had seized a suspect's phone. Initially, an agreement was reached allowing police to retain the device until 2026, but after two months, the suspect requested its return. He argued that his store had been broken into and robbed, and without his phone, he couldn't access his business's security system.
At first, police agreed to return the device but later reversed their position. When the suspect's attorneys petitioned the court for the phone's release, police submitted an official response citing two "sections of law" supposedly supporting their position. During the hearing, however, the defense attorney made a startling claim, "I suspect the police response was taken from ChatGPT. The quoted law sections don't exist."
Following this accusation, the police representative acknowledged the error, "My colleague is correct. We retract our statement. What was quoted is incorrect. Whoever wrote this did so in good faith, by mistake. We admit there was an error."
The judge expressed harsh criticism in his ruling, "If I thought I had seen everything in my 30 years on the bench, I was apparently mistaken." He added that the police had humiliated themselves and noted that "one of those 'laws' didn't even exist in anyone's imagination until now, as searching for its wording on the internet using search engines like Google doesn't produce any matching results."
Ultimately, the judge devised a practical solution. The suspect would provide police with a new, empty phone, and police would transfer all content from the original device to it. This arrangement would allow the device itself to remain with police for investigation purposes while enabling the suspect to access information vital to his business.
The Israeli Police stated in response, "The answer was written contrary to standard procedure, therefore the commander of the unit in charge of the investigation has ordered an inquiry and will take steps to prevent similar incidents in the future."
