{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-11-02T07:21:40.098Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"council-of-state","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"","evidence":"","year":"2025","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":1,"contextualRelations":0,"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":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2025-dutch-university-master-students-thesis-fraud-sanction-over-ai-garbled-references-annulled-by-council-of-state","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Bij beslissing van 25 september 2025 heeft de Examencommissie van de Faculteit Economie en Bedrijfskunde van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen wegens fraude al het in het kader van het vak'; 'hem uitgesloten van deelname aan dit vak voor de duur van één jaar en hem te kennen gegeven dat hij hierdoor niet langer in aanmerking komt voor het judicium (summa) cum laude'; 'Naar aanleiding van de door hem ingeleverde thesis is het vermoeden van fraude ontstaan, aangezien die volgens de examinator een groot aantal niet-bestaande verwijzingen bevat.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 25 September 2025 the University of Groningen's Faculty of Economics and Business exam board declared all the student's work for the master's thesis course invalid for fraud, excluded him from the course for one year and told him he no longer qualified for cum laude, after the examiner found a large number of non-existent references in the thesis.","causal_attribution":"The sanction and its stated ground are documented in the ruling."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Bij beslissing van 31 maart 2026 heeft het College van beroep voor de examens van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen het door'; 'heeft immers erkend dat hij bepaalde niet-bestaande bronnen in zijn bronnenlijst heeft opgenomen'; 'Het gaat dus niet om een fout die op het laatste moment in het thesisproces is ontstaan toen hij met behulp van ChatGPT zijn bronnenlijst netjes wilde maken.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 31 March 2026 the university's examination appeals board dismissed his administrative appeal, noting he had admitted including certain non-existent sources and stating that the error had not arisen at the last moment when he wanted to tidy his reference list with ChatGPT.","causal_attribution":"The appeals board's decision and reasoning are documented in the ruling; the ChatGPT reference is the appeals board's description."},{"id":"c3","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'De onjuiste bronnen in de bronnenlijst zijn een gevolg van zijn slordigheid.'; 'heeft enkel een AI-tool ingezet voor het categoriseren van bronnen en heeft hierbij als input zijn bestaande bronnenlijst gegeven.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Before the Council of State the student argued that the wrong references resulted from carelessness and that he had only used an AI tool to categorise sources, giving it his existing reference list as input.","causal_attribution":"The ruling documents that he made this argument."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'komen de verkorte verwijzingen (bijvoorbeeld Choi et al., 2020) in de hoofdtekst grotendeels - meer specifiek: acht van de elf - overeen met de verwijzingen naar bestaande bronnen'; 'de kennelijke verhaspeling van zijn eigen bronnenlijst door AI aan de herleidbaarheid daarvan naar de daadwerkelijk bestaande bronnen in de weg heeft gestaan'; 'Hij heeft daarmee een plausibele uitleg gegeven over hoe de niet-bestaande verwijzingen in deze bronnenlijsten terecht zijn gekomen, maar het CBE en de examencommissie hebben hier onvoldoende mee gedaan.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The Council of State found that the short references in the thesis text led to existing sources, that the AI's evident garbling of the student's own reference list had prevented them from being traced to those sources, and that he had given a plausible explanation the university bodies had not dealt with adequately.","causal_attribution":"The AI tool's role is the court's own finding."},{"id":"c5","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'Het CBE heeft onvoldoende aannemelijk gemaakt dat sprake is van meer dan alleen een onzorgvuldigheid.'; 'heeft een fout begaan, waarvan hij zelf erkent dat hij die niet had mogen maken.'; 'Het is aan de examinator of en, zo ja, welke gevolgen hij in dat kader verbindt aan de geconstateerde onzorgvuldigheid.'; 'Datum uitspraak: 12 augustus 2026'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"On 12 August 2026 the Council of State held that only carelessness, not fraud, had been shown, annulled the decisions and left it to the examiner to decide what consequence the carelessness should have when the thesis is assessed again; the student accepted he should not have made the error.","causal_attribution":"Outcome documented in the ruling."}],"effects":[{"label":"thesis work declared invalid, one-year course exclusion and loss of cum laude eligibility, later annulled","claim_id":"c1","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://data.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraken/content?id=ECLI:NL:RVS:2026:4744","kind":"court_record","access":"read","language":"nl","translation_note":"Read in Dutch by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-11-02 and translated by the research agent (an AI) into English; no human translator or reviewer was involved. Full text of Council of State ruling 202601424/1/A2 of 12 August 2026 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2026:4744) from the rechtspraak.nl open data service, HTTP 200; the student is anonymised in the ruling. The AB 2026/254 annotation was not read.","independence_group":"raad-van-state-ruling-202601424"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["own_use"],"contexts":["education","justice"],"unknowns":["Which AI tool the student used: the appeals board names ChatGPT, while the student's own account in the ruling names no product.","What grade the thesis received on reassessment and whether the one-year exclusion delayed his graduation.","The content of the AB 2026/254 annotation, which was not read."],"geography":{"basis":"The sanctioning exam board belongs to the University of Groningen and the appeal was decided by the Dutch Council of State. The ruling withholds the student's place of residence, so that field is left unknown.","court_countries":["NL"],"event_countries":["NL"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published on the Council of State's ruling of 12 August 2026: the court found that an AI tool had evidently garbled the student's own reference list, producing the non-existent references for which the exam board invalidated his thesis work, excluded him from the course and removed his cum laude eligibility, and annulled that fraud sanction as only carelessness had been shown.","reviewed_on":"2026-11-02"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The Council of State ruling records that the student used an AI tool to categorise sources, giving it his existing reference list, and finds that the AI evidently garbled his own reference list, which prevented the references from being traced to the existing sources; it holds that the wrong entries in later versions support his account that he used AI to perfect his list. The university's appeals board described the use as tidying the list with ChatGPT. The non-existent references in the AI tool's returned list are what the exam board sanctioned as fraud.","status":"supported"},"person_relations":["communicated_with"]},"name":"Dutch Council of State annuls master's student's thesis fraud sanction, finding an AI tool had garbled his own reference list","summary":"A master's student at the University of Groningen used an AI tool while preparing the reference list of his thesis. The examiner found many non-existent references, and on 25 September 2025 the Faculty of Economics and Business exam board declared all his work for the thesis course invalid for fraud, excluded him from the course for one year and told him he no longer qualified for a cum laude judgment. The university's examination appeals board upheld this on 31 March 2026. The student said he had only used an AI tool to categorise sources, giving it his existing reference list as input. On 12 August 2026 the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State found that the references in the thesis text led to existing, relevant sources, that the AI had evidently garbled the student's own reference list, and that only carelessness, not fraud, had been shown. It annulled both decisions and ordered the thesis to be assessed again.","incidentDate":"2025-09-25","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"day","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-08-12","aiSystem":"An AI tool the student used to categorise and tidy his thesis reference list, with his existing list as input; the university's examination appeals board described this as using ChatGPT to make the reference list neat, and the student's own account names no product","aiProduct":"ChatGPT (reported)","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["educational_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"The exam board declared all the student's thesis-course work invalid for fraud, excluded him from the course for a year and removed his eligibility for cum laude over references that, according to the Council of State, an AI tool had garbled from his own list; the Council of State annulled the sanction on 12 August 2026.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":1,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":0,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person: the appellant student, who used the AI tool himself (ruling, paragraphs 1 to 5).","victimAgeRange":"unknown","jurisdiction":"NL","platformType":"other","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://data.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraken/content?id=ECLI:NL:RVS:2026:4744","primarySourceLabel":"Raad van State, ruling 202601424/1/A2 (ECLI:NL:RVS:2026:4744), 12 August 2026","firstPublishedAt":"2026-11-02T03:04:10.01518+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-11-02T03:04:10.01518+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["thesis","reference-list","fraud-sanction-annulled","council-of-state","netherlands","own-use"]}]}