A bill directing the Defense Department to build an AI incident reporting programme - non-punitive reporting and department-wide trend analysis (H.R.10189)

1Applying to AI a mechanism for learning from accidents

Aviation and medicine have long had arrangements for reporting accidents and near misses, analysing causes and carrying the result forward. This bill applies that idea to AI systems. Rather than handling each fault inside the unit where it occurred, it gathers them department-wide in one place, finds the recurring shapes and returns them to decisions about testing and procurement.

2Non-punitive is the pivot

The bill directs that the programme be designed from established safety incident reporting, vulnerability disclosure and lessons-learned practice, and states an emphasis on non-punitive reporting, protection of sensitive and proprietary information, and dissemination of lessons learned.

Whether a reporting programme works depends on whether reporters believe they will not lose by it - knowledge built up in aviation safety appears here as a statutory requirement.

3The text also specifies what analysis needs

1. 1ReportPrompt reporting of covered AI incidents and vulnerabilities is required
2. 2StandardiseA designated official receives reports and aligns their form
3. 3Analyse trendsRecurring risks and failure modes are identified
4. 4Return itGuidance, alerts and recommendations inform testing, procurement and deployment

The text also requires a mechanism enabling timely access to and sharing of relevant logs, system data and model information as necessary to support analysis and response. AI faults often cannot be traced from the output alone, and whether training data and model information can be seen decides whether analysis is possible at all. That this premise is written into the design of the programme is what marks it.

4Where it stands, and the shape of bills in this field

Of the 120 congressional bills this site holds as of 2026-09-02, 94 sit at committee referral, 17 have been ordered reported by a committee, five have been received in the other chamber and two are on a calendar. This bill is at the first of those stages. Referrals divide across 23 committees, five of them to Armed Services.