{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-12T08:44:24.107Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"para","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"2024","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":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2024-australian-catholic-university-turnitin-ai-detector-misconduct-referrals","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"disputed","evidence":[{"locator":"'ACU registered nearly 6,000 cases of alleged academic misconduct across its nine campuses in 2024, according to internal documents seen by the ABC.'; 'About 90 per cent of those referrals related to AI use.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'In a statement, deputy vice-chancellor Tania Broadley told the ABC those figures were \"substantially overstated\".'","relation":"contradicts","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"ACU registered nearly 6,000 cases of alleged academic misconduct across its nine campuses in 2024, about 90 per cent of them relating to AI use, according to internal documents seen by the ABC; ACU's deputy vice-chancellor called the figures substantially overstated.","causal_attribution":"The ABC's reading of internal documents; disputed by the university."},{"id":"c2","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'While the student produced dozens of pages of evidence, the university's case hinged on a single AI-generated report that highlighted problematic text.'; 'almost my entire essay was lit up in blue — 84 per cent of it supposedly written by AI'; 'said a final year ACU paramedic student wrongly accused of cheating with AI'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The ABC reports that the university's case against a final-year paramedic student hinged on a single AI-generated report, which the student said marked 84 per cent of the essay as AI-written, while the student produced dozens of pages of evidence; the ABC describes the student as wrongly accused.","causal_attribution":"The student's account and the ABC's description; the detector report itself was not inspected."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'But email chains and documentation obtained by the ABC indicate ACU regularly relied on the report alone.'; 'When the paramedic student requested additional evidence, they were sent a copy of their original assessment — identical to the AI report, minus the highlighting.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Email chains and documents obtained by the ABC indicate ACU regularly relied on the AI report alone; when the paramedic student asked for more evidence, the university sent a copy of the original assessment matching the AI report without the highlighting.","causal_attribution":"The ABC's reading of documents it obtained."},{"id":"c4","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'Each said they were notified at the end of the semester, given little time to respond and had to wait months for the university to conclude they had done nothing wrong.'; 'The ABC has seen emails from ACU academic integrity officers requesting students provide handwritten and typed notes and internet search histories to rule out AI use.'; 'Professor Broadley said this was no longer part of the university's practice.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Students the ABC spoke to said they were notified at the end of semester, given little time to respond and waited months to be cleared; the ABC saw emails asking students for handwritten and typed notes and internet search histories, a practice ACU says it has stopped.","causal_attribution":"Student accounts and emails the ABC saw; the university's response."},{"id":"c5","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'They don't have a search warrant to request your search history, but when [you're facing] the cost of having to repeat a unit, you just do what they want.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"The paramedic student said the university had no search warrant to request a search history, but that when facing the cost of having to repeat a unit, 'you just do what they want'.","causal_attribution":"The student's account."},{"id":"c6","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'In it, the university accused her of using artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat on an assignment.'; 'It took six months for ACU to clear'; 'academic transcript was marked \"results withheld\".'; 'is convinced that incomplete document was part of the reason she was not offered a graduate position.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"A final-year nursing student was accused by email of using AI to cheat on an assignment and cleared after six months; meanwhile her transcript was marked 'results withheld', which she believes was part of the reason she was not offered a graduate position. The report does not say what evidence prompted her referral.","causal_attribution":"Her account; the link between the withheld results and the job outcome is her belief, and no detector is named in her case."},{"id":"c7","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'In 2023, Turnitin added an AI detector to its toolkit.'; '\"It should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student,\" the statement reads.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"}],"assertion":"Turnitin added an AI detector in 2023 and states that its AI reports may not always be accurate and should not be the sole basis for adverse actions against a student.","causal_attribution":"Turnitin's published caution as quoted by the ABC."},{"id":"c8","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'According to internal ACU documents, the university was aware of issues with the AI detector tool for more than a year before it scrapped it.'; 'ACU abandoned the Turnitin tool in March after finding it to be ineffective.'; 'any case where Turnitin's AI detection tool was the sole evidence was dismissed immediately.'; '\"We regret the impact this had on some students,\" she said.'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'revelations that the Australian Catholic University accused thousands of students of AI-related academic misconduct, only to conclude months later that many had done nothing wrong.'","relation":"context","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"According to internal ACU documents reported by the ABC, the university knew of problems with the AI detector for more than a year before abandoning the Turnitin tool in March after finding it ineffective; ACU's deputy vice-chancellor said Turnitin-only cases were dismissed immediately, acknowledged investigations were not always timely and said the university regretted the impact on some students.","causal_attribution":"The ABC's reading of internal documents and the university's statement."}],"effects":[{"label":"misconduct referral resting on an AI-detection report, with months of investigation before clearance (student account)","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"demands for notes and search histories while facing the cost of repeating a unit (student account)","claim_id":"c5","direction":"negative"},{"label":"transcript marked results withheld for six months during an AI-use investigation whose evidence the report does not state (student account)","claim_id":"c6","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-09/artificial-intelligence-cheating-australian-catholic-university/105863524","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English in full from abc.net.au (HTTP 200). The internal ACU documents and emails the ABC describes were not inspected.","independence_group":"abc-au"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-20/universities-using-ai-to-detect-students-cheating/105905804","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Read in English from abc.net.au (HTTP 200). Same publisher as s1; its ACU sentence restates s1's findings and is not independent of it.","independence_group":"abc-au"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["education"],"unknowns":["How many students were flagged by the detector and later cleared; ACU would not say.","The dates of the individual referrals and the year of the March abandonment, which the report gives without a year.","Whether the nursing student's referral involved the detector.","What the Herald Sun's 1 October 2026 report adds about later ACU cases; it could not be read.","Which tool produced the paramedic student's report; the ABC does not name it and places it in its account of Turnitin's AI reports and ACU's use of Turnitin's detector."],"geography":{"basis":"ACU is an Australian university and the ABC describes referrals across its nine campuses; the students' countries of residence are not stated.","court_countries":[],"event_countries":["AU"],"affected_person_countries":[]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a concrete account, from an ABC investigation using student interviews and internal documents, of students at an Australian university facing misconduct cases that rested on an AI-detection report, with the university's own acknowledgement of delays and its abandonment of the detector. Students are not named.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-06"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The ABC reports that the case against a final-year paramedic student hinged on a single AI-generated detection report marking 84 per cent of an essay as AI-written, that ACU regularly relied on the report alone, and that ACU used Turnitin's AI-detection tool until abandoning it. The detector's output was a claim that the student's own writing was AI-generated, and the student describes the investigation, evidence demands and fear of repeating a unit that followed until clearance.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Australian Catholic University: ABC reports students wrongly accused of AI cheating, one case resting on a lone AI-detection report","summary":"The ABC reported on 9 October 2025 that Australian Catholic University (ACU) registered nearly 6,000 cases of alleged academic misconduct across its nine campuses in 2024, according to internal documents, and that about 90 per cent of the referrals related to AI use. The ABC reports that the university's case against a final-year paramedic student hinged on a single AI-generated report that, the student said, marked 84 per cent of an essay as AI-written; the student produced dozens of pages of evidence and the ABC describes the student as wrongly accused. Students the ABC spoke to said they were notified at the end of semester, had little time to respond and waited months to be cleared, and the ABC saw emails asking students for handwritten notes and internet search histories. A final-year nursing student was cleared after six months, during which her transcript read 'results withheld'; she believes this cost her a graduate position, and the report does not say what evidence prompted her referral. The ABC says internal documents show ACU knew of problems with the detector for more than a year before abandoning the Turnitin tool in March. ACU's deputy vice-chancellor called the figures substantially overstated, said cases resting solely on Turnitin's AI detection were dismissed immediately, acknowledged investigations were not always timely and said the university regretted the impact on some students.","incidentDate":"2024-01-01","incidentKind":"bounded_series","incidentDatePrecision":"year","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2025-10-09","aiSystem":"Turnitin's AI-writing detection, used by Australian Catholic University in academic-integrity referrals until the university abandoned it","aiProduct":"Turnitin AI-text detector","aiCompany":"Turnitin","severity":"low","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["educational_harm","psychological_distress"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"Students referred for alleged AI-related misconduct, one on the strength of a single AI-detection report marking 84 per cent of an essay as AI-written, described months of investigation, demands for notes and search histories and fear of repeating units before being cleared (ABC report based on student accounts, internal documents and emails it saw).","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"alleged","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"partial","affectedCountEvidence":"One person is counted: the final-year paramedic student whose case, per the ABC, hinged on a single AI-generated detection report. The ABC spoke to several other students issued AI-related infringements but does not number them or say which were detector-flagged; the nursing student's referral is not tied to the detector in the report, so she is not counted. The nearly 6,000 referrals are misconduct cases, not a count of people harmed by the detector, and ACU disputes the figure.","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"AU","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"media_coverage","outcomeStatus":"resolved","primarySourceUrl":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-09/artificial-intelligence-cheating-australian-catholic-university/105863524","primarySourceLabel":"ABC News, 9 October 2025: University wrongly accuses students of using artificial intelligence to cheat","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-06T03:13:27.616887+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-06T03:13:27.616887+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["ai-text-detector","academic-integrity","education","australia","turnitin","university"]}]}