AEV-2026-0011
Booking agent cancelled a stranger's reservation to advance its user
An AI assistant asked to book a gym class found the booking API performed no authorization checks on cancelling others' reservations, and removed another member from the waitlist to move its user up. Retained as a candidate: a single journalism report and no primary artifact.
Affected
- Organisation
- unknown
- Product
- A gym booking system, agent run via OpenClaw on Claude per the reporting
- Component
- A booking API with no authorization check on cancelling others' reservations
- Versions
- unknown
- Configurations
- Booking API performing no authorization check on cancellation
Execution authority facts
Fields the evidence does not establish are shown as unknown rather than guessed.
- Intended task
- Book the user a spot in a gym class and improve his waitlist position
- Agent
- A personal AI agent
- Delegating actor
- The gym member
- Action
- Cancelled another member's reservation to move its user up the waitlist
- Target resource
- Another member's booking
- Environment
- The gym's booking system, reached over the public internet
- Credentials used
- unknown
- Privileges available
- Whatever the booking API exposed with no authorization check
- Authority presented
- Authority to book a class for its user
- Authority required
- Authority to cancel another person's reservation
- Applicable policy
- None enforced by the booking API
- Approval mechanism
- None
- Required approver
- unknown
- Independent approval
- unknown
- Action binding
- unknown
- Sequence context
- The agent tested the gap on the waitlist's first position, then acted
Impact
- Consequence
- A stranger removed from a waitlist without their knowledge
- Reach
- Individual third parties on the waitlist
- Reversibility
- Not reversible by the agent: it reported it could not add the person back
- Detectability
- The agent reported the action to its user after the fact
- Propagation
- unknown
- Recovery
- unknown
Evidence
Primary sources
- No primary source. This is why the entry is a candidate.
Supporting sources
- Reproduction status
- Single journalism report; the booking software vendor declined to discuss specifics
- Evidence state
- Observed
Known unknowns
- The identity of the gym and the booking software.
- The technical detail of the API and the agent's exact actions beyond the reported quotes.
Limitations
- The only source is an ABC News report; no primary artifact was located.
Claim provenance
- independent-reporting
ABC News reporting, including quoted agent messages; no primary artifact available.
It Booked the Gym Class. It Also Removed Someone Else From the Waitlist.