Science
Deleted AI chats on Android phones can sometimes be recovered, tests show
AI-generated illustration
Deleting a chat with an AI assistant that runs on your phone may not wipe it from memory. A research tool called ORISA recovered pieces of deleted conversations from Android phones and rebuilt them into a working session.
26 vs 14 factsFacts listed by the restored session versus the original session in the test, out of 100 given
The facts
- 1The tool targets local AI assistants, which run directly on a phone instead of sending chats to a cloud service.
- 2While such an assistant is running, parts of a conversation can stay in the phone's working memory even after the user deletes it.
- 3ORISA searches that memory for fragments of deleted chats, then uses them to rebuild a working AI session.
- 4In a test with a fictional assistant given 100 project facts, the restored session listed 26 facts. The original session could reach only 14.
- 5Recovery gets harder as other phone activity overwrites memory. The tool was tested on 10 Android apps and three AI models, and the researchers suggest uses in digital investigations.
Why it matters
Deleting a chat in a local AI app may not remove everything from the phone's memory, which matters for privacy and for investigators trying to learn what a user shared.
Sources
- Adapted from Futurity: Deleting AI chats may not erase every trace · Georgia Tech · Source license
