DOING DUE DILIGENCE FOR CIP? USE UNKNOWN NEWS SITES AT YOUR PERIL, FOR MANY FEATURE AI-GENERATED CONTENT THAT IS INACCURATE

Remember all my nightmare stories about lazy lawyers who used Artificial intelligence to perform legal research, and ended up up in hot water with a judge, when the AI-generated cases they submitted were found to be simply fictional invention of the program? Their attempt to shortcut the research process by relying upon AI resulted in public and professional ridicule.

If you happen to be a compliance officer searching media performing Customer Identification Procedure (CIP), be warned that a number of new "news" websites have found their way to the Internet, which take previously published information from established sites, and using Artificial Intelligence, generate new stories. The problem is, and note this well please, that the AI programs used often create incorrect information on the process. If you rely upon this bad data in CIP you may inadvertently make a decision on a new client that will come back to haunt you, in spades, when he or she engages in money laundering or financial crime at your bank. These websites generate stories en masse, simply to attract advertising dollars, not to be accurate in their reporting.

Make it a rule to NOT use any online news unless you know the site to be a genuine and well-established news source, preferably of a major newspaper ot television station. Watch out for sites calling themselves something deceptively similar to those that you know and trust. You do not want to pass a new client, or decline one, on false information. Don't use sources that you may regret later.