{ "meta": { "exportedAt": "2026-09-22T15:59:16.191Z", "formatVersion": 2, "selection": { "q": "ceuta", "system": "", "harm": "", "context": "", "country": "", "role": "", "relation": "contextual", "evidence": "", "year": "", "response": "", "severity": "", "verification": "", "view": "incidents", "sort": "added" }, "totalIncidents": 1, "coverage": { "cases": 1, "countries": 1, "languages": 1, "unknownLocation": 0, "locationPending": 0, "unknownLanguage": 0, "unknownDate": 0, "lawsuits": 0, "regulatory": 0, "minors": 0, "coreRelations": 0, "contextualRelations": 1, "mixedRelations": 0, "unknownRelations": 0, "relationPending": 0, "relationUnknown": 0 }, "countingNote": "Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.", "affectedCountNote": "Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.", "source": "NOPE Incident Tracker", "url": "https://nope.net/incidents", "license": "CC BY 4.0" }, "incidents": [ { "id": "2026-broffoni-google-ai-false-identification", "caseFacts": { "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "status": "reported", "evidence": [ { "locator": "'Una mujer a la que no conocía le avisó que en varios grupos de WhatsApp de Ceuta estaban circulando videos e imágenes suyas y que se decía que estaba proporcionando gas pimienta a inmigrantes marroquíes'; 'Recibí amenazas de muerte, de violación y ataques en general.'", "relation": "supports", "source_id": "s1" } ], "assertion": "On 26 August 2026, WhatsApp groups in Ceuta circulated videos and images claiming Flavia Broffoni was a woman filmed there allegedly giving pepper spray to Moroccan migrants, and she received death and rape threats.", "causal_attribution": "Broffoni's account to La Nación, supported by the warning email and the group screenshot shown to the outlet. One reporting chain; the threats are her report, attributed." }, { "id": "c2", "status": "reported", "evidence": [ { "locator": "Screenshot passage: 'uno de los usuarios había tomado un recorte del rostro de la mujer del video y lo había ingresado en una herramienta de inteligencia artificial de Google para consultarle quién era. La consulta incluía como contexto la palabra \"activista\". La respuesta identificaba a la persona de la fotografía como Flavia Broffoni'.", "relation": "supports", "source_id": "s1" }, { "locator": "Google Argentina response: 'no pueden confirmar que la captura corresponda a una respuesta generada por sus sistemas porque no cuentan con un enlace al resultado original'; no formal report received.", "relation": "context", "source_id": "s1" } ], "assertion": "The identification originated from a Google AI answer: a group user cropped the woman's face from the video and queried a Google AI tool with the context word 'activista'; the answer identified her as Flavia Broffoni and described her public profile.", "causal_attribution": "The screenshot is the evidence of the AI answer; Google neither confirmed nor denied its provenance. The claim is attributed to the screenshot account, not asserted as independently proven." }, { "id": "c3", "status": "documented", "evidence": [ { "locator": "'Este medio también probó utilizar la búsqueda de Google a partir del video de la mujer que filmó en Ceuta, y la respuesta de la IA fue afirmar que se trataba de otra persona, una estudiante y community manager oriunda de Quilmes, de la cual brindó datos personales y redes sociales.'", "relation": "supports", "source_id": "s1" } ], "assertion": "La Nación itself ran the same video through Google's search and the AI asserted the woman was a different person — a student and community manager from Quilmes — and supplied her personal data and social networks.", "causal_attribution": "The outlet documents its own replication test — direct evidence that the tool produces false identifications from this input; the second misidentified person is not counted as harmed (no virality-driven harm to her is reported)." }, { "id": "c4", "status": "reported", "evidence": [ { "locator": "'Yo estoy en la Patagonia, Argentina y nunca tuve relación con lo que está ocurriendo allá. La última vez que estuve en España, si mal no recuerdo, fue en 2014'; the 'tres mentiras' analysis; the others'-tests passage ('muy probablemente', short brown hair vs her current long grey hair).", "relation": "supports", "source_id": "s1" } ], "assertion": "Broffoni says she is not the woman in the video and was in Patagonia, having last visited Spain in 2014; she also notes there is no evidence the real woman distributed pepper spray, and that tests by other people with the same photo sometimes produced refusals and sometimes 'muy probablemente' her, justified partly from outdated photos.", "causal_attribution": "Her account; the factual impossibility is uncontested in the inspected reporting. The real woman in the video is unidentified and the pepper-spray claim about her is unverified." } ], "effects": [ { "label": "false AI identification attached to an invented accusation, followed by death and rape threats", "claim_id": "c2", "direction": "negative" } ], "sources": [ { "id": "s1", "url": "https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/una-ia-identifico-erroneamente-a-una-activista-argentina-en-un-video-de-ceuta-denuncia-hostigamiento-nid28082026/", "kind": "news_report", "access": "read", "language": "es", "translation_note": "Read in Spanish on 2026-09-15 (datePublished 2026-08-28T15:09Z; 25 substantive paragraphs including the Broffoni interview, the screenshot account, the outlet's own test and Google Argentina's response). Model translation, no human reviewer.", "independence_group": "la-nacion" } ], "version": 1, "ai_roles": [ "unknown" ], "contexts": [ "everyday_life", "privacy" ], "unknowns": [ "Which Google product produced the identification is not named in the inspected reporting; only 'una herramienta de inteligencia artificial de Google' is described.", "Whether a formal complaint or lawsuit was filed after 28 August 2026 is not reported.", "The identity of the woman actually filmed in Ceuta, and any basis for the pepper-spray claim about her, is unknown.", "The student from Quilmes falsely identified in La Nación's test: whether she experienced any harm from the tool's identification is unreported.", "The reach of the false identification beyond the Ceuta WhatsApp groups (views, reshares) is not quantified." ], "geography": { "basis": "Event: the identification and its circulation happened in Ceuta — the screenshot came from a Ceuta WhatsApp group and the warning sender is described as a citizen of Ceuta. Affected person: Broffoni is in Epuyén, Chubut, Argentine Patagonia ('Yo estoy en la Patagonia, Argentina'). No court proceeding is reported.", "court_countries": [], "event_countries": [ "ES" ], "affected_person_countries": [ "AR" ] }, "publication": { "basis": "Published under the 2026-09-15 charter as a consequential false claim about a person (made_claim_about): a named adult publicly pursuing accountability, documented through one strong original chain that includes the outlet's own replication of the failure. Threats are attributed to her account; the AI answer's provenance is attributed to the screenshot account with Google's neither-confirm-nor-deny response recorded.", "reviewed_on": "2026-09-15" }, "ai_involvement": { "basis": "The WhatsApp-group screenshot shows a Google AI answer naming Broffoni from a face crop with 'activista' context; La Nación independently reproduced a false identification of a different person from the same video; Broffoni reports that tests by others sometimes produced 'muy probablemente' her. Google Argentina neither confirmed nor denied that the screenshot came from its systems, asking for the original link. The specific product is not named in the inspected reporting.", "status": "supported" }, "person_relations": [ "made_claim_about" ] }, "name": "Google AI falsely identified Argentine activist Flavia Broffoni as a woman in a Ceuta migrant-violence video; death and rape threats followed", "summary": "On 26 August 2026, WhatsApp groups in Ceuta circulated videos and images claiming that Argentine political scientist and activist Flavia Broffoni — who was in Patagonia and had not been to Spain since 2014 — was a woman filmed in Ceuta allegedly giving pepper spray to Moroccan migrants. A screenshot from one group shows that a user cropped the woman's face from the video and asked a Google AI tool who she was, with the word 'activista' as context; the answer identified her as Flavia Broffoni with details of her public profile. Broffoni received death and rape threats. La Nación's own test with the same video produced a different false identification — a student from Quilmes, with her personal data. Google Argentina said it could not confirm the screenshot came from its systems without the original link and had received no formal report. Broffoni is weighing legal action with her lawyer.", "incidentDate": "2026-08-26", "incidentEndDate": "2026-08-28", "incidentKind": "bounded_series", "incidentDatePrecision": "range", "exposurePattern": "single_interaction", "reportedDate": "2026-08-28", "aiSystem": "Google AI tool answering a face-crop query (product not named in inspected reporting)", "aiCompany": "Google", "severity": "high", "verificationStatus": "credible", "harmCategories": [], "harmOutcomes": [ "psychological_distress", "reputational_harm" ], "harmOutcomeSummary": "A false AI identification attached to an invented accusation spread in Ceuta WhatsApp groups brought death and rape threats to a woman who was demonstrably on another continent, plus reputational damage she is now addressing with a lawyer.", "frameworkFacets": [], "causationStatus": "supported", "participantUsersAffectedMin": 0, "otherPeopleHarmedMin": 1, "affectedCountStatus": "documented_minimum", "affectedCountEvidence": "One documented harmed person: Broffoni, named and interviewed. The student from Quilmes falsely identified in La Nación's own test is not counted — no harm to her from virality is reported (the test was the outlet's own); she is recorded in the unknowns.", "victimAgeRange": "adult", "jurisdiction": "AR", "platformType": "assistant", "outcomeType": "media_coverage", "outcomeStatus": "ongoing", "primarySourceUrl": "https://www.lanacion.com.ar/sociedad/una-ia-identifico-erroneamente-a-una-activista-argentina-en-un-video-de-ceuta-denuncia-hostigamiento-nid28082026/", "primarySourceLabel": "La Nación (28 Aug 2026, Aldana Rizzuto) — interview with Broffoni, the WhatsApp screenshot account, the outlet's own replication test, and Google Argentina's response", "firstPublishedAt": "2026-09-15T09:23:34.062763+00:00", "scopeVersion": "facts-v3", "tags": [ "made-claim-about", "false-identification", "google-ai", "argentina", "ceuta", "threats", "defamation-adjacent" ] } ] }