Institutional development · Digital transformation, data and AI · United States
Georgia Tech's ORISA tool retrieves erased on-device AI chats from Android phones
Georgia Tech researchers have created ORISA, software that pulls erased chats from AI assistants running locally on Android handsets and turns them back into a usable session.
Why it matters: Digital investigators may gain a new data-extraction method, while people using on-device AI assistants face privacy worries, Georgia Tech said.
Georgia Tech said a research team has created ORISA, software able to retrieve erased chats held by on-device AI assistants on Android handsets and turn them back into a usable AI session.
According to the university, while a local assistant remains active, fragments of chats may persist in the handset's working memory after being erased, and ORISA scans that memory to find them.
In a test, the team built an invented assistant called "Project Note Keeper" with the ChatterUI Android app, supplied it with 100 made-up project facts and then erased the chat; ORISA retrieved the material and used it to set up a fresh session.
The university said the work might hand digital investigators a new method for extracting data from handsets, while also prompting privacy worries for people relying on assistants that run on their own devices.
Editor’s view
Sarah Williamson, Teaching, Digital and AI Editor
People using on-device AI assistants on Android phones and digital investigators are directly affected: if chat fragments stay in working memory while the assistant runs, then erasing a conversation may still leave recoverable traces, as the university reports.
