US weapons scanning company Evolv Technology will be banned from making unsupported claims about its products in a proposed settlement with the US government.
The company had claimed its AI scanner, used in the entrances of thousands of US schools, hospitals and stadiums, could detect all weapons.
“The FTC has been clear that claims about technology – including artificial intelligence – need to be backed up”, said Samuel Levine, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection.
"Metallic composition, shape, fragmentation - we have tens of thousands of these signatures, for all the weapons that are out there," chief executive Peter George said in 2021. "All the guns, all the bombs and all the large tactical knives."
However a BBC report in 2022 showed testing that had found Evolv’s system could not reliably detect guns or bombs - after a freedom of information request from security-analysis company IPVM.
And earlier this year the BBC reported that Evolv’s claims that the UK government had tested and approved its technology were also false.