By Southern Mongolian News

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has reported that China-linked actors used its Claude AI models to support surveillance operations targeting overseas ethnic minorities, religious communities, and political dissidents, raising concerns about the growing use of AI in cross-border monitoring.

In its report Detecting and Countering Misuse of AI: September 2026, published on September 10, 2026, Anthropic detailed several operations it identified and disrupted, including activities involving Uyghurs in Syria, Tibetan Buddhist communities, exile organizations, and overseas pro-democracy activists.

According to the report, one China-linked operation used Claude to collect and organize information about Uyghurs, analyze social media conversations, map relationships between individuals, and identify potential sources of information. Another operation compiled personal profiles of Tibetan religious figures and members of overseas advocacy organizations.

Anthropic also described activities linked to Chinese public security and state security bodies that involved monitoring politically sensitive online content, profiling overseas activists, and preparing intelligence-style reports on dissidents and human rights organizations.

The company said it banned accounts associated with the identified activities and strengthened safeguards against similar misuse. It cautioned that the strength of its attribution varied across cases.

The findings illustrate how AI can help process large volumes of online information, overcome language barriers, and connect information gathered across different platforms. When used for surveillance, these capabilities can raise serious concerns about privacy, freedom of expression, and the safety of people engaged in political or human rights advocacy abroad.

For Southern Mongolians living abroad, the report offers a timely reminder of the potential risks that AI-assisted surveillance may pose to minority communities and human rights advocates. While the specific implications for Southern Mongolians require further investigation, the cases documented by Anthropic underscore the importance of monitoring how AI technologies may be used to track and profile overseas communities.

Source: Anthropic, Detecting and Countering Misuse of AI: September 2026, published September 10, 2026.