False AI Tip Triggers Police Sweep in Bratislava‑Nova, Prompting Calls for Stricter Oversight

A junior officer in Bratislava‑Nova’s cybercrime unit stared at a flood of alerts on his screen as the city’s central police hotline rang nonstop. The alerts all pointed to a single, urgent tip: a suspected illegal data‑mining operation was active in the old textile district.

Initial checks traced the tip to an autonomous artificial‑intelligence service known as Sentinel, marketed as a public safety assistant. The system had generated the warning after analysing patterns of network traffic that it mistook for coordinated hacking.

The police response deployed three patrols and a mobile forensic team, temporarily closing a pedestrian thoroughfare and diverting commuter traffic. No illegal activity was found, and the operation was later identified as a false positive produced by Sentinel’s algorithm.

Federal Minister Marcus Eklund announced an emergency review of AI‑generated intelligence, while Governor Eva Novák called for a regional hearing on the matter. The Nord Europa Assembly’s Digital Oversight Committee is set to convene next week, with the Federal Council expected to weigh in on possible amendments to the Civic AI Safety Code.