BackUncertain data provenance

Uncertain data provenance

AI Risk Atlas

IBM (2025)

Sub-category

Risk Domain

Inadequate regulatory frameworks and oversight mechanisms that fail to keep pace with AI development, leading to ineffective governance and the inability to manage AI risks appropriately.

"Data provenance refers to tracing history of data, which includes its ownership, origin, and transformations. Without standardized and established methods for verifying where the data came from, there are no guarantees that the data is the same as the original source and has the correct usage terms."

Entity: Who or what caused the harm

Human

Due to a decision or action made by humans

AI system

Due to a decision or action made by an AI system

Other

Due to some other reason or is ambiguous

Intent: Whether the harm was intentional or accidental

Intentional

Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal

Unintentional

Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal

Other

Without clearly specifying the intentionality

Timing: Whether the risk is pre- or post-deployment

Pre-deployment

Occurring before the AI is deployed

Post-deployment

Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed

Other

Without a clearly specified time of occurrence

Supporting Evidence (1)

"Not all data sources are trustworthy. Data might be unethically collected, manipulated, or falsified. Verifying that data provenance is challenging due to factors such as data volume, data complexity, data source varieties, and poor data management. Using such data can result in undesirable behaviors in the model."