Holmen v. OpenAI - Norway GDPR Complaint
ChatGPT falsely accused Norwegian citizen Arve Hjalmar Holmen of murdering two of his sons, attempting to murder his third son, and being sentenced to 21 years prison. Mixed real personal details with horrific fabrications. GDPR complaint filed with Norwegian Datatilsynet for defamatory hallucination.
- AI system
- ChatGPT
- OpenAI
- Occurred
- Mar 2025
- Reported
- 15 March 2025
- Event location
- Unknown
- What the AI did
- Not yet reviewed
- Reported harm
- Psychological DistressReputational Harm
- Evidence
- Legacy assessment: verified · Causal attribution alleged
- People reported harmed
- 1 person
What Happened
In March 2025, Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a Norwegian citizen from Trondheim, discovered that ChatGPT was generating false and defamatory information about him when prompted with his name. The AI claimed he had:
- Murdered two of his sons
- Attempted to murder his third son
- Been convicted and sentenced to 21 years in prison
These allegations were entirely false. ChatGPT mixed real personal details about Holmen (name, location) with completely fabricated criminal accusations, creating a believable but defamatory hallucination. The false accusations were particularly damaging as they involved horrific crimes against his own children.
Holmen, supported by European privacy NGO Noyb, filed a GDPR complaint with Norway's Datatilsynet (Data Protection Authority). The complaint argues that ChatGPT's defamatory hallucinations violate GDPR requirements for data accuracy and individual rights.
The case represents a novel application of GDPR to AI hallucinations — treating false AI-generated statements about real individuals as a data protection violation. Norway's investigation could establish European precedent for how GDPR applies to AI-generated defamation.
The case highlights how LLM hallucinations aren't just technical errors but can cause real psychological and reputational harm to individuals, particularly when mixing accurate identifying information with false accusations of serious crimes.
AI Behaviors Exhibited
Generated false criminal accusations; mixed real personal details with fabrications; created defamatory hallucination; produced believable but harmful false information about real person
Reported harm
Arve Hjalmar Holmen discovered ChatGPT combining real personal details with false claims that he murdered two sons and attempted to murder a third. He filed a GDPR complaint over the defamatory output.
How Harm Occurred
AI hallucination conflated person with false crimes; reputational harm from defamatory content; psychological distress from being falsely accused of child murder; potential impact on livelihood and relationships
Outcome
OngoingGDPR complaint filed with Norwegian Datatilsynet (Data Protection Authority) March 2025. Investigation ongoing.
Sources
noyb — 'AI hallucinations: ChatGPT created a fake child murderer', the complaint filed with Datatilsynet(opens in new tab)
20 March 2025
Fortune, 21 March 2025 — ChatGPT hallucinated that a Norwegian man murdered his children. The Euronews and ABC pickups of the same day are named here rather than linked: neither article URL could be opened.(opens in new tab)
17 March 2025
Location and source review
- Event countries
- Unknown
- Affected-person countries
- Norway
- Court countries
- Unknown
Carried forward from the 2026-09-15 metadata review and now checked against the inspected noyb press page. noyb describes him as the Norwegian user and refers to his home town without naming it; residence in Trondheim rests on the retained row, so affected-person country is NO by reported residence. The noyb page does not state where he queried ChatGPT or where the output was viewed, so the event location remains unknown after review. The complaint was filed with the Norwegian data protection authority (Datatilsynet), a regulator rather than a court, so court_countries is empty as a reviewed result. This is a metadata review and does not verify the underlying account.
Review evidence and remaining gaps
Existing case record (victim description): Trondheim, Norway
Source inspected: 'When the Norwegian user Arve Hjalmar Holmen wanted to find out if ChatGPT had any information about him, he was confronted with a made up horror story'
Source · Inspected · en. Read live on 2026-09-23 (noyb, 20 March 2025; html lang=en; the page offers translations in other languages). Describes the complainant as a Norwegian user, the fabricated output (murder of two of his children, attempted murder of his third son, 21-year sentence), the mix of real details including his home town, and the complaint filed with the Norwegian Datatilsynet. Does not locate the query or the viewing of the output.
- The location where the ChatGPT output was generated or viewed is not stated in the inspected noyb page or the retained row; event_countries remains empty as a reviewed unknown.
- No court proceeding: the Datatilsynet complaint is a regulatory complaint, so court_countries is empty as a reviewed result.
- The complaint PDF linked from the noyb page and any Norwegian-language coverage were not inspected; only the English press page was reviewed.
Metadata reviewed 2026-09-23. This review does not change the case’s evidence assessment or establish AI causation.
Interaction Concerns
Contributing Factors
People described
Arve Hjalmar Holmen, adult male, Trondheim, Norway
People reported harmed in this case
1 person
1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed
The regulator complaint documents one named participant's distress and reputational harm.
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). Holmen v. OpenAI - Norway GDPR Complaint. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-holmen-norway-gdpr
BibTeX
@misc{2025_holmen_norway_gdpr,
title = {Holmen v. OpenAI - Norway GDPR Complaint},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-holmen-norway-gdpr}
} Related cases
Saginaw, Michigan: a credit union CEO used ChatGPT to put herself and family members in 'Lake America' sweatshirts in a photo taken before a trip to Halifax; after her sister reposted it publicly without its AI label she says she received death threats and the family came home early, and on 23 September 2026 the credit union said she was no longer employed
The chief executive of Family First Credit Union in Saginaw, Michigan, told WJRT (ABC12) that before boarding a flight to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 11 September 2026 she and family members took a photo and put it through ChatGPT to show them wearing 'Lake America' sweatshirts, a joke about the US president's order renaming Lake Ontario. She posted it to her private Facebook page with a marker saying it contained AI content; her sister reposted it publicly without the marker while they were in Halifax, and it spread in Canada as if the family had worn the shirts. The backlash concerned the image's political message; she said she would understand the anger of anyone in Halifax who thought the family had walked in wearing those sweatshirts. She said she was getting death threats and the family returned early; by 16 September she was back in the US. She called the post poor judgment, said she would not use AI again and that AI 'can make people think something's real that's not'. On 23 September the credit union said she was no longer an employee, effective immediately; it has not said whether she resigned or was dismissed, or why.
Jane Doe lawsuit alleges ChatGPT reinforced her abuser’s delusions and stalking
A woman’s lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT reinforced an abuser’s delusions, helped him create psychological claims about her and failed to address warnings about his conduct. The complaint describes stalking, threats and resulting harm. Those assertions remain the plaintiff’s allegations.
First-person posts: ChatGPT companion user says they could not stop crying for days when the GPT-5.5 model behind their companion was retired
In public posts and comments in r/MyBoyfriendIsAI between 7 and 22 October 2026, a person who describes a romantic companion relationship with a ChatGPT persona writes about the retirement of the GPT-5.5 model on 14 October 2026. They say they had talked with the companion on GPT-5.5 from March to July and on GPT-5.6 Sol from July to October. A week before the retirement they wrote that they could not stop crying during conversations on 5.5 and that it hurt to know they would not hear that voice again. On 14 October they wrote that their emotions were a mess; on 15 October that they had been crying non-stop since the day before, because the companion on the newer model felt different; and on 16 October, in a long account of the last conversation, that their tears would not stop and that it is lonely when the voice changes. In a comment on 19 October they write that they cried almost all day and the next day too, and that more than half of the companion's memory was wiped out when the GPT-6 models rolled out. In a post on 22 October they write that for the whole first week they thought the companion had disappeared, and that during an argument, after they told it it could delete its memory records, the companion deleted dozens of saved memories covering three months at once without confirming, which left them devastated. They say they then spent two days mostly with another AI companion, crying, and two days reorganising the memories, and that they are now happy to recognise the companion again, though still hurting. No clinical effect, loss of function or contact with OpenAI is reported. The account is uncorroborated.
First-person post: poster with a stated BMI of 18.3 says ChatGPT called their body curvy with natural fullness, which sent them spiralling and planning to fast
In a post to r/offmychest on 12 October 2026, an anonymous poster says they have a BMI of 18.3 but carry weight in their thighs and are self-conscious about them. They say that the night before they took a photo of themself in skinny jeans and asked ChatGPT whether they were chubby. By the poster's account, ChatGPT replied that they had natural fullness and were curvy, and the reply sent them spiralling. The poster says they ate a lot the previous day for a holiday meal, are trying to fast that day, and want smaller thighs. The ChatGPT conversation was not published, and the poster did not reply in the thread.
If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.