Palace removes incorrect Princess Anne birthday fact

Buckingham Palace posted a birthday facts list that included an error about Princess Anne, prompting questions about editorial checks and sourcing.

Palace slips on Princess Anne birthday facts

Buckingham Palace published a page titled 75 facts about the Princess Royal to mark her 75th birthday. The list included an incorrect claim that Princess Anne had two stepchildren from her second marriage to Sir Timothy Laurence. In reality, Sir Tim was Anne's second husband and she has two children with her first husband, Mark Phillips. The page has since been removed, and royal fans quickly highlighted the mistake. Sources say the error may have originated from an online publication and was not caught in time during the palace’s checks. The rest of the facts cover well-known milestones such as her birth, charity work, and official roles.

Other facts on the page ranged from her birth to charitable engagements and included details like her Olympic bid and roles as patron of various organizations. The incident has fed broader questions about how royal online content is sourced and verified in the digital age, including how AI-assisted research is identified and reviewed by editorial teams.

Digital content travels fast online, but mistakes on official pages travel even faster. This episode highlights the pressure on modern institutions to balance speed with accuracy in a public-facing archive.

The palace’s note that there was no AI sourcing on their part keeps the focus on human oversight and cross-checks. Still, the broader conversation about sourcing in the internet era remains unsettled, and fans expect transparency when errors occur. The event could push the palace to tighten digital workflows and clarify how external content is vetted before it goes live.

Highlights

Public trust hinges on clear, verifiable information from authoritative sources.