Skip to main content
NOPE
Low reported severity

Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction

On 24 October 2025 West Midlands Police gave Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group a written report that cited a Maccabi Tel Aviv v West Ham match on 9 November 2023 that never took place. The group had advised on 16 October that Aston Villa give no tickets to Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters for the 6 November 2025 match. In January 2026 the Chief Constable said the error arose from use of Microsoft Copilot, after earlier telling MPs it came from a Google search. The inspectorate found the ban advice predated the report and said confirmation bias influenced the force's assessments to the group. The sources do not show the Copilot output caused the ban.

AI system
Microsoft Copilot (reported)
Microsoft
Occurred
24 Oct 2025
Reported
14 January 2026
Event location
United Kingdom
What the AI did
Made a claim about the person
Reported harm
Other Material Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Public services · Justice
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources
8 claims: 1 documented, 2 corroborated, 5 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

AI system as recorded: Microsoft Copilot (reported by West Midlands Police personnel; query and output not inspected)

Reported harm

The inspectorate letter and Aston Villa's statement report that Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were barred from attending the 6 November 2025 match. The sources read do not establish that the AI output caused the restriction.

What remains unknown

  • The inspectorate letter says some inaccuracies in the 24 October report had appeared earlier in the 10 October 2025 letter from the gold commander and does not state whether the West Ham statement was one of them. It does not state when the Copilot search was done or what the report said happened at the claimed fixture. The incident date is the report date, not the search date. The West Ham item concerns the club's fixture history, and the report as a whole is described as imbalanced about the previous behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
  • Whether the Safety Advisory Group changed or confirmed its advice at the 24 October 2025 meeting is not stated in the inspected sources.
  • The Copilot query, its output and how the false fixture entered the report were not inspected. The inspectorate heard contradictory evidence from the Chief Constable and another interviewee.
  • How many supporters intended to attend, held tickets or were otherwise affected is not stated.
  • The inspectorate letter is preliminary and a final report was still to come. The final findings were not inspected.
  • Later events such as any resignation or watchdog referral appear only as related-article headlines on the Guardian page and are not cited.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. A West Midlands Police interviewee told the inspectorate the false fixture came from a Microsoft Copilot search, and the Chief Constable later said the same. Both accounts come from the force, and the Copilot query and output were not inspected.

8 claims: 1 documented, 2 corroborated, 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Corroborated A written West Midlands Police report given to Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group for its 24 October 2025 meeting stated that Maccabi Tel Aviv's most recent UK match was against West Ham United on 9 November 2023, and no such fixture existed. The Chief Constable later acknowledged that a fictitious match between the two clubs had been included in police intelligence.

Causal attribution. The inspectorate review of the report and the Chief Constable's admission of the error (as relayed by the Guardian) are separate chains. The Guardian describes the fictitious match as included in police intelligence and does not name the 24 October report. The link to the report rests on the inspectorate letter. The letter is preliminary, and the inspectorate says its views may develop or change.

Reported The erroneous West Ham statement is attributed by a West Midlands Police interviewee and by the Chief Constable to a Microsoft Copilot search. The Chief Constable had earlier told the inspectorate and MPs that the force did not use AI.

Causal attribution. Both attributions come from West Midlands Police personnel, so they are one chain. The inspectorate did not inspect the Copilot query or output. The interviewee described the error as an AI hallucination.

Reported The Chief Constable had told MPs the mistake was made by one individual doing one Google search, and in an email to the Home Affairs Committee published on 14 January 2026 apologised for giving incorrect evidence.

Causal attribution. The Chief Constable's own account of the evidence given, relayed by the Guardian.

Corroborated On 16 October 2025 the Safety Advisory Group advised Aston Villa to reduce to zero the ticket allocation for Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, and the club confirmed that no away fans could attend the 6 November 2025 match.

Causal attribution. The restriction is the Safety Advisory Group's advice. The inspectorate letter and the Aston Villa statement (relayed by Al Jazeera) are separate chains.

  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    the Chair of the SAG wrote to the Chief Operating Officer of Aston Villa FC, advising that the club should reduce to zero the ticket allocation to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
  • aljazeera.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    no away fans may attend the UEFA Europa League match with Maccabi Tel Aviv
Reported The inspectorate states that the original decision to restrict away-fan tickets was made during the 7 and 16 October oral briefings. It says the 16 October briefing did not repeat the inaccuracies of the 10 October letter or introduce those of the 24 October report, and that the 7 October briefing was not materially inaccurate apart from one discrepancy. It adds that those inaccuracies "would of course have been in the gold and silver commanders’ minds when they decided to recommend the force’s preferred tactical option". The Chair of the Safety Advisory Group said the group would rely on the 24 October report as a wholly fresh consideration of the issue.

Causal attribution. The inspectorate places the ban advice before the 24 October report. The sources inspected do not establish which inaccuracies reached the commanders before the 16 October advice, whether the Safety Advisory Group changed its advice on 24 October, or that the Copilot output caused the ban.

  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The original decision to restrict to zero the ticket allocation for away fans was made during those oral briefings.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The force’s 16 October 2025 oral briefing didn’t repeat the inaccuracies of the 10 October 2025 letter
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    I am satisfied that the silver commander’s initial oral briefing to the SAG wasn’t materially inaccurate.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    But those inaccuracies would of course have been in the gold and silver commanders’ minds when they decided to recommend the force’s preferred tactical option.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The Chair stated that the SAG would rely on that report as “a wholly fresh consideration of the issue”.
Reported The inspectorate concluded that confirmation bias about the behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans influenced the content and strength of the force's assessments to the group and found no evidence that antisemitism played a part in the force's preferred option.

Causal attribution. The inspectorate's preliminary view. It says confirmation bias influenced the content and strength of the force's assessments and played a part in how the force reached its preferred option. Its finding on the Copilot attribution is limited to recording the interviewee's account.

  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    confirmation bias, in relation to the anticipated behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and the potential disorder their presence might cause, influenced both the content and strength of assessments WMP gave to the SAG.
  • gov.uk(opens in new tab) supports · English
    I have found no evidence to support a view that antisemitism played any part in WMP stating that its preferred tactical option was to reduce to zero the ticket allocation to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
Reported Maccabi Tel Aviv announced it would decline any away ticket allocation for the match.

Causal attribution. The club's own statement. It gave safety concerns as its reason.

Documented The Home Secretary commissioned an inspection on 31 October 2025 of police contributions to safety advisory groups, and the inspectorate reported its preliminary views on the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture on 14 January 2026.

Causal attribution. The letter documents its own date and status.

Sources

4 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: United Kingdom. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The inspectorate publication applies to England and Wales and concerns Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group and West Midlands Police. The supporters' countries of residence are not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: The inspectorate letter and the Guardian article were read in full, and the Aston Villa and club statements were read via Al Jazeera and Malay Mail. The AI attribution rests on West Midlands Police accounts. The letter dates the ban advice before the report and does not attribute the ban to the AI output, and the record says so.

People reported harmed in this case

Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

The number of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters who intended to travel or held ticket entitlements is not stated in the inspected sources, so numeric zero placeholders are used.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-birmingham-maccabi-tel-aviv-away-fan-ban-police-report-false-match-attributed-to-copilot

BibTeX

@misc{2025_birmingham_maccabi_tel_aviv_away_fan_ban_police_report_false_match_attributed_to_copilot,
  title = {Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-birmingham-maccabi-tel-aviv-away-fan-ban-police-report-false-match-attributed-to-copilot}
}

Related cases

Medium ChatGPT

Victorian child protection worker put a family's information into ChatGPT to draft a court report that minimised risk to the child, regulator finds

Victoria's Information Commissioner (OVIC) found in a report published on 24 September 2024 that a child protection worker at the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) used ChatGPT in or around September 2023 to draft a Protection Application Report submitted to the Children's Court about a young child. On the balance of probabilities, OVIC found the worker entered personal information, including names, about the child, mother, father and carer, disclosing it to OpenAI; the worker admitted using ChatGPT but denied entering personal information. OVIC found generated content in the report described a doll that the father had reportedly used for sexual purposes as a parental strength ('age-appropriate toys'), downplaying the risk to the child, although the court's and the department's decisions did not change. The report was withdrawn and replaced, and the mother, father and carer described anxiety when told of the disclosure. OVIC found serious breaches of two privacy principles and issued a compliance notice requiring DFFH to ban and block generative AI text tools for child protection staff until November 2026; DFFH accepted the breach findings.

Low CBP One app

Advocates say CBP One asylum app's facial recognition rejected photos of Black asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, blocking appointments

In January 2023 US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) made its CBP One mobile app the only way for migrants at the US-Mexico border to apply for asylum appointments and exemption from Title 42 restrictions; applicants had to upload a photo of themselves through the app. In February 2023 the Guardian and the Border Chronicle, both reporting by Melissa del Bosque, quoted three non-profits working with Haitian and African asylum seekers in Tijuana, Reynosa and Matamoros who said the app's facial recognition was failing to register many people with darker skin, so they could not upload their photos and obtain appointments. The executive director of Al Otro Lado said Haitians at a workshop her organisation held in Tijuana the day after the app went live got error after error message. The Sidewalk School said hardly anyone among about 4,000 Black asylum seekers in Reynosa and 1,000 Haitians in Matamoros was getting an appointment, and that shining construction lights on faces let adults get past the photo step but not children under six, which kept families from applying. A Haitian Bridge Alliance attorney said the app had helped lighter-skinned applicants but not Haitians. The advocates also described other barriers, such as outdated phones and poor internet access. CBP did not answer the Guardian's questions before publication and told the Border Chronicle no one was available to respond. No technical analysis of the failures is reported.

Low Anima Annie

London: AI-generated GP record summary falsely listed diabetes, and a healthy patient was invited to diabetic eye screening, Fortune reports

Fortune reported on 20 July 2025 that a London patient, a healthy man in his mid-20s, had recently received a letter inviting him to diabetic eye screening although he had never been diagnosed with diabetes. He told Fortune he briefly worried he had been diagnosed without knowing, then assumed an admin error. The next day a nurse at a routine blood test questioned the diagnosis and showed him the notes on the system, which were AI-generated summaries. In his full records, which Fortune reviewed, the entry that introduced the diagnosis was listed as a summary 'generated by Annie AI', the tool of Anima Health. It said he had presented with chest pain and shortness of breath from likely angina due to coronary artery disease, that he had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and was on medications with dosages, and it gave the source document's address as a fictitious 'Health Hospital' on '456 Care Road' in 'Health City'. According to the patient and other records Fortune reviewed, none of these details was accurate; the entry appeared around the time he had attended hospital with tonsillitis, which it did not mention. Fortune writes that the invitation was presumably based on the erroneous summary. An NHS representative told Fortune the practice makes limited use of supervised AI, that Anima only suggests codes and a summary to a human reviewer, and that the error was a one-off human error: a summariser had spotted the mistake but, distracted, saved the original version instead of the corrected one. Anima Health did not respond to Fortune.

Low Gemini (reported)

Singapore: an AI-generated photo of a crocodile at Pandan Reservoir led PUB to suspend water activities and search the reservoir in August 2026; a contractor's worker who allegedly made it was charged with transmitting a false message and with obstructing justice for allegedly deleting the image and the Gemini app history

On 20 August 2026 Singapore's national water agency PUB received a report of a crocodile sighting at Pandan Reservoir, with a photo. PUB said it tried to verify the image with several AI checker tools without a definite result, so it suspended water activities, told the Singapore Rowing Association and Singapore Canoe Federation to stop all activities there, put up warning signs and, with the National Parks Board, ran search-and-capture operations. On 21 August PUB found the photo was fake, stopped searching and filed a police report; water activities resumed on 22 August. Police said on 28 September that preliminary investigations found a man had used artificial intelligence to generate the image, sent it to a colleague, and then deleted the image and the related application to conceal his actions. On 29 September the 30-year-old, a worker employed by PUB's reservoir maintenance contractor, was charged with transmitting a false message and with obstructing the course of justice; the charge sheets, as reported by The Straits Times, say he deleted the image and the Gemini AI application history log from his phone on 21 August. He told the court he intended to plead guilty, and the case returns to court in November.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.

Back to all incidents