Android forensic tool recovers deleted AI chats, researchers say

The tool, called ORISA, pieces together information that local AI apps leave behind on Android phones. According to the report, local assistants process conversations on the device, an approach intended to offer more privacy by keeping chats away from remote servers. Deleting a conversation does not necessarily clear everything from the phone’s working memory.

ORISA searches for leftover pieces and uses them to reconstruct previous conversations. In one experiment, the tool recovered 26 previously shared facts, compared with 14 that were accessible to the original AI session, according to the report. The technique can bring the chatbot back to life with some of its previous knowledge, Android Authority said.

Recovering deleted information from phones is not new. The report said it has been done with text messages, photos and other supposedly erased data. The Android case applies that kind of recovery to conversations handled by local AI apps.

The technique requires forensic access to device data. The reported work does not establish that conversations from cloud-based chatbots are similarly recoverable.