Published Unlearning Numbers Move Per Checkpoint, and Not Because the Removed Data Survives: An Audit of 263 Released Batch-Normalized Checkpoints
An unlearning audit reads its verdict off numbers that an unlearned model and its retrained reference each publish, and both also ship batch-normalization statistics that no gradient step wrote and no release records. Refitting them on kept data at bit-identical weights moves 47 of 221 released checkpoints past the spread their own release's seeds show, several inside a method whose average does not move: what moves is the checkpoint's property, not its method's. What does the moving is not the removed data surviving in the state: exchanging kept records for removed ones inside a fixed fitting pool moves a published cell by almost nothing, while how far a checkpoint's shipped state has dr...
| Authors | Junlong Shen Xingyu Li |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 10 September 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 10 September 2026 |
Silytics shows public metadata from arXiv and links to the original. Information may be incomplete or out of date. Last refreshed 17 October 2026. Licenses and terms of the original apply to the work itself. Not financial, legal or professional advice.