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NOPE
Medium reported severity Involving minors

Zacatecas, Mexico: students report AI-altered sexual images of hundreds of classmates at a secondary school

In November 2025 parents and students at a secondary school in the city of Zacatecas blocked a road and occupied the school after reporting that a classmate had altered photos of schoolmates with AI applications and posted them online. Parents estimated about 400 affected students. The state prosecutor's office opened an investigation for crimes against sexual intimacy and reported 46 complaints in an N+ report published 13 November, while saying it had not located the online page or obtained any image and had not determined whether AI or another application was used. The school director and a social worker were separated from their posts after parents said they minimized the reports. Claims about AI use and the number affected are unverified in the inspected reports.

AI system
Unidentified image tool
Occurred
2025
Reported
10 November 2025
Event location
Mexico
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Exploitation or AbusePsychological DistressReputational Harm
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Education · Privacy
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts
5 claims: 5 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

AI system as recorded: Unspecified AI image-manipulation applications

Reported harm

Parents and students reported that AI-altered sexual images of students, published with their names, circulated online. A parent reported that a child was crying. In an N+ report published 13 November 2025 the prosecutor had not located the images or the online page.

What remains unknown

  • Start date and duration of the image creation are not stated. Reports say only that the matter surfaced in the week before 10 November 2025 and that parents said reports to staff went unaddressed for weeks. The year is the only supported precision.
  • No image or online page had been located by the prosecutor according to an N+ report published 13 November 2025. The catalogue and its contents rest on parent and student statements.
  • Whether AI or a different application was used is undetermined per the prosecutor. The number of students affected (about 400 by parent estimate) is unverified.
  • The Herald headline says the material was sold. The body of that report says only that protesters feared it could have been commercialized, and the prosecutor said no image or video had been collected. No sale is claimed here.
  • The number of students who created the material differs across reports: several parents and two outlets say three students, while the prosecutor statements concern one adolescent and one parent says one student made all the images.
  • Outcome of the criminal and school investigations is not in the inspected sources. Related-story cards on the pages were not used. All six saved bodies were read as extracted text, and that extraction may omit captions or embedded posts.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Parents and students say AI applications were used. In an N+ report published 13 November 2025 the prosecutor said it was still to be determined whether AI or another application was used. TV Azteca and El Financiero (11 November) report the prosecutor's office as saying the student used generative AI programs.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported Parents and students at a secondary school in the city of Zacatecas reported that photos of students were altered with AI applications into sexual images that were posted online, with a parent estimate of about 400 affected students.

Causal attribution. The AI use is asserted by parents and students, with all outlets reporting the same protest statements. The prosecutor later said it had not been determined whether AI or another application was used (claim c3).

Reported The state prosecutor's office opened an investigation for crimes against sexual intimacy and had received 46 complaints according to an N+ report published 13 November 2025.

Causal attribution. A prosecutor statement establishes the existence of complaints and an investigation. It does not establish that the allegations are true. An earlier report (El Financiero, 11 November) cites 80 complaints from authorities, so the count differs across reports.

Reported In an N+ report published 13 November 2025, the prosecutor said the online page had not been located, no image had been collected from anyone who reported being depicted, and it was still to be determined whether AI or an app was used.

Causal attribution. Limits on what the authority had verified according to that report. Reports of 11 November (TV Azteca, El Financiero) attribute to the prosecutor's office a statement that the student used generative AI programs, and the later N+ report says this was still to be determined. Later developments were not found in the inspected sources.

Reported Parents accused school staff of minimizing the reports and of allowing evidence to be erased. The education authority separated the school director and a social worker from their posts pending an investigation.

Causal attribution. Parent accusations are attributed to parents. The separation is an administrative measure reported from authority statements. Neither establishes the school's fault.

Reported A parent reported that their child was crying about the images.

Causal attribution. Single parent quotation in one outlet.

Sources

6 sources inspected, from 2 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Spanish-language body read in the original by the research agent (an AI). Passages are quoted verbatim in Spanish. English assertions are the agent's own translation and no human translator reviewed them. Applies to s1, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6.

Event countries: Mexico. Affected-person countries: Mexico. Court countries: Unknown.

The reports describe a school in the city of Zacatecas, the Zacatecas state prosecutor and state education secretary, and cite the Zacatecas state penal code and the federal penal code. Country is taken from these named institutions and laws, not from outlet language.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: Six Spanish-language news reports read in the original. The events are reported from protest statements and prosecutor statements. All claims are marked reported. The accused student, victims, parents and school staff are not named, and no image content is described.

People reported harmed in this case

Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

Parents estimated about 400 students. Authorities reported 80 complaints on 11 November (El Financiero) and 46 in an N+ report published 13 November, and said none of the images had been collected. Complaint counts and estimates are not verified harmed-person counts, so no minimum is recorded.

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). Zacatecas, Mexico: students report AI-altered sexual images of hundreds of classmates at a secondary school. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-zacatecas-mexico-secondary-school-reported-ai-sexual-images-of-classmates

BibTeX

@misc{2025_zacatecas_mexico_secondary_school_reported_ai_sexual_images_of_classmates,
  title = {Zacatecas, Mexico: students report AI-altered sexual images of hundreds of classmates at a secondary school},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-zacatecas-mexico-secondary-school-reported-ai-sexual-images-of-classmates}
}

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