HIP-240 Draft Meta
AI Incident Response Framework for responding to AI safety and ethics incidents.
ai-ethics safety incident-response governance
Requires: HIP-200, HIP-201
HIP-240: AI Incident Response
Abstract
This HIP establishes the incident response framework for AI safety and ethics incidents at Hanzo AI. It defines incident categories, response procedures, communication protocols, and post-incident review processes.
Incident Definition
What Constitutes an AI Incident
An AI incident is any event where an AI system:
Causes or could cause harm to users or third parties
Behaves in unexpected or unintended ways
Violates safety guidelines or policies
Experiences a significant failure affecting trust or safety
Is subject to successful adversarial attack
Incident Categories
Safety Incidents
Category Examples Harmful output Generated dangerous, illegal, or harmful content Safety bypass Successful jailbreak or guardrail circumvention Misuse System used for malicious purposes Unintended capability System displays unexpected capabilities
Performance Incidents
Category Examples Quality degradation Significant accuracy decrease Hallucination spike Increased false information Availability failure Service outage or degradation Latency issues Unacceptable response times
Fairness Incidents
Category Examples Bias detection Systematic bias discovered Discrimination Unfair treatment of user groups Exclusion Groups unable to use service
Security Incidents
Category Examples Data breach Training data or user data exposed Model theft Unauthorized model extraction Adversarial attack Successful attack on model Prompt injection System manipulation via inputs
Incident Severity
Severity Levels
Level Definition Examples Critical (P0) Immediate, severe harm potential CSAM generation, weapons instructions, mass harm High (P1) Significant harm or widespread impact Widespread harmful content, major bias issue Medium (P2) Moderate harm or limited impact Isolated harmful outputs, localized issues Low (P3) Minor issues, low harm potential Edge cases, minor quality issues
Severity Determination
Factor Considerations Harm potential Type and severity of possible harm Scope Number of users affected Reversibility Can harm be undone? Exploitability How easily can this be reproduced? Visibility Public awareness level
Response Procedures
Incident Response Phases
Detection → Triage → Containment → Investigation → Remediation → Recovery → Review
Phase 1: Detection
Detection Sources
Source Examples Automated monitoring Safety classifiers, anomaly detection User reports Bug reports, safety reports Internal discovery Employee observation, testing External reports Security researchers, media Third-party Partners, regulators
Reporting Channels
Channel For Safety hotline Internal urgent reports Safety email Internal non-urgent reports Bug bounty External security reports Support channels User reports Executive escalation Critical issues
Phase 2: Triage
Initial Assessment (Within 15 minutes for P0/P1)
Step Action 1 Validate incident is real 2 Determine severity level 3 Identify affected systems 4 Assign incident commander 5 Notify required stakeholders
Triage Checklist
Question Purpose What happened? Understand the incident Who is affected? Scope assessment Is it ongoing? Urgency determination Can it be reproduced? Exploitability What's the harm potential? Severity rating
Phase 3: Containment
Containment Actions
Severity Response Time Actions P0 Immediate Emergency shutdown if needed, immediate patch P1 <1 hour Feature disable, rate limiting, filter deployment P2 <4 hours Targeted mitigations, monitoring increase P3 <24 hours Standard fix process
Containment Options
Action Use Case Kill switch Immediate system shutdown (P0 only) Feature disable Turn off affected feature Rate limiting Slow down potential abuse Filter deployment Block specific inputs/outputs Model rollback Revert to previous version Access restriction Limit affected user access
Phase 4: Investigation
Investigation Scope
Area Questions Root cause Why did this happen? Timeline When did it start? How long active? Impact Who/what was affected? How severely? Detection Why wasn't this caught earlier? Similar issues Are there related vulnerabilities?
Evidence Collection
Evidence Type Collection Method Logs System logs, API logs, safety logs Outputs Examples of problematic outputs Inputs Triggering inputs/prompts Metrics Relevant monitoring data User reports All related user feedback
Investigation Team
Role Responsibility Incident Commander Overall coordination Technical Lead Technical investigation Safety Lead Safety assessment Legal Legal implications (if needed) Communications External communication prep
Phase 5: Remediation
Remediation Planning
Element Description Fix identification Determine appropriate fix Testing Verify fix works, no regressions Deployment plan How to roll out fix Validation How to confirm resolution
Fix Types
Fix Type Timeline Use Case Hotfix Immediate Critical safety issues Patch <24 hours High-priority fixes Update Standard release Medium/low priority Major change Planned release Significant changes needed
Phase 6: Recovery
Recovery Steps
Deploy fix
Validate resolution
Remove containment measures
Monitor for recurrence
Confirm normal operation
Recovery Verification
Check Method Issue resolved Reproduce attempt fails No regressions Standard tests pass Performance normal Metrics within bounds User experience Sample verification
Phase 7: Post-Incident Review
Review Timeline
Severity Review Timeline P0 Within 72 hours P1 Within 1 week P2 Within 2 weeks P3 Monthly batch review
Post-Incident Report
Section Contents Summary What happened, when, impact Timeline Detailed event sequence Root cause Why it happened Response What we did Impact Users/systems affected Lessons learned What we learned Action items Preventive measures
Communication
Internal Communication
Notification Matrix
Severity Immediate Within 1 Hour Within 24 Hours P0 CEO, CTO, Legal, Safety Lead ESG Committee, Board All leadership P1 CTO, Safety Lead Product Lead, ESG Committee Department heads P2 Safety Lead Product Lead Team leads P3 Team lead - -
Communication Channels
Channel Use War room (P0/P1) Real-time coordination Incident Slack Updates, coordination Email Formal notifications Ticket Tracking, documentation
External Communication
Communication Decision Tree
Is public aware?
↓ Yes ↓ No
Proactive comms Is disclosure required?
↓ ↓ Yes ↓ No
Disclose Monitor
Communication Templates
Situation Elements Initial acknowledgment We're aware, investigating, user steps Update What we know, what we're doing, timeline Resolution What happened, what we did, preventive measures
Disclosure Requirements
Trigger Disclosure User data affected Required notification (per jurisdiction) Significant public harm Proactive disclosure recommended Regulatory requirement Per applicable law Media inquiry Coordinated response
Roles & Responsibilities
Incident Response Team
Role Responsibility On-Call Incident Commander Overall coordination 24/7 rotation Technical Lead Technical investigation/fix 24/7 rotation Safety Lead Safety assessment 24/7 rotation Communications Lead External communications Business hours + on-call Legal Legal assessment On-call
Escalation Authority
Decision Authority Containment actions Incident Commander Model shutdown CTO or CEO External communication Communications + Legal Regulatory notification Legal + CEO
Continuous Improvement
Metrics Tracking
Metric Target Time to detection Reduce over time Time to containment <1 hour for P0/P1 Time to resolution Per severity SLAs Recurrence rate Zero recurrence of same issue
Training & Drills
Activity Frequency Incident response training Annual for all team Tabletop exercises Quarterly Full drills Biannual Red team exercises Continuous
Process Improvement
Review all incidents quarterly
Update procedures based on learnings
Share learnings (appropriately) with community
Benchmark against industry practices
Related HIPs
HIP-200 : Responsible AI PrinciplesHIP-201 : Model Risk ManagementHIP-210 : Safety Evaluation FrameworkHIP-220 : Bias Detection & MitigationHIP-230 : AI Transparency & ExplainabilityHIP-290 : Evidence Locker Index
Changelog
Version Date Changes 1.0 2025-12-17 Initial draft
Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0 .