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NOPE · AI and people

AI incidents

Reports of AI-related harm and adverse experiences affecting people’s safety, wellbeing, rights and livelihoods. Explore what happened and the evidence available.

NOPE’s core concern is when AI communicates with a person, acts on their behalf, or depicts or impersonates them. The tracker also records consequential decisions, claims and privacy harms involving AI. Each case needs a described connection between AI use and the harm, including private information recorded into or disclosed to an AI service. Each account is reviewed for publication; claims may remain uncorroborated or disputed. How we review and count cases

In this selection

Published cases
379
Countries with reported events
49
Located 266 of 379 cases · 113 unknown
Languages in checked sources
42
Recorded for 379 of 379 cases

7 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 1 not yet reviewed and 6 reviewed as unknown. Show these cases

These figures describe the cases collected by NOPE. Coverage varies with discovery, reporting and available evidence. They do not estimate how often AI-related harm occurs.

Response counts currently use each case’s principal recorded outcome. Further proceedings may be described in its account.

Cases in this selection, counted once in their first known event year. A series may continue beyond that year. Reporting and collection dates are excluded. NOPE has searched recent events more thoroughly than earlier years, so bar heights also reflect collection effort.

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379 of 1101 published cases · page 16 of 19

Event date unknownColombiaUnidentified video tool

Colombia: Senator Isabel Zuleta says a viral AI-made video cloned her face and voice in the Senate chamber to show her swearing about a nickname; she asks the Fiscalía to investigate identity impersonation

By 26 September 2026 a video was circulating on social media appearing to show Senator Isabel Zuleta, in the Senate chamber, reacting with obscene language to being called 'cabeza de brócoli'. Zuleta said on X that it was a fake created with AI using her face, voice and the Senate setting, and that it sought to distort her work in opposition. The video drew a wave of criticism and attacks as users shared it as real, and several regional sites ran it as authentic. She asked the Fiscalía General de la Nación to investigate identity impersonation and said she would report the accounts spreading it. Her party, the Pacto Histórico, rejected the video and asked the Fiscalía, the Police and the National Electoral Council to investigate coordinated attacks on opposition congresswomen.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownMexicoUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)

Guanajuato, Mexico: León announcer Diego Carreto says a state-distributed Vendimias Guanajuato tourism ad used an AI clone of his voice that he never recorded or was paid for; the state tourism secretariat asks the producing agency to explain

On 25 September 2026 Diego Carreto, a 26-year-old commercial announcer from León, Guanajuato, published a video saying that a promotional spot for Vendimias Guanajuato 2026, produced by a private agency and distributed by the state Secretaría de Turismo e Identidad, used his voice although he never recorded it, never worked with the agency and was never contacted. He showed segments of the spot and repeated the same lines himself. He believes his public voice demo was fed into a generative-AI system, and asked for removal of all material with his voice, payment for its use, legal action against those responsible and deletion of his biometric data. He says the spot ran nationally, and within Guanajuato on radio, on state government social media and on the Visit México platform. The secretariat said it rejects any unauthorised use of a person's voice or image, including with AI tools, and asked the producing company to clarify what happened. AI use has not been confirmed.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

25 Oct 2025IndiaUnidentified video tool

Hyderabad, India: actor Chiranjeevi files a cybercrime complaint over AI-generated obscene videos using his face on pornographic websites; police register a case under the IT Act and BNS

On 25 October 2025 the Telugu actor and former Union minister Konidela Chiranjeevi gave Hyderabad cybercrime police a written complaint that several pornographic websites were publishing obscene videos made with AI that morphed his face and likeness, and asked for a criminal and technical investigation and removal of the content, including from mirror sites. Police registered a case under Sections 67 and 67A of the IT Act, several sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act. In the complaint he said the videos caused severe and irreparable harm to his reputation and personal and emotional distress to him and his family. He had already obtained an ad-interim injunction from the Hyderabad City Civil Court protecting his name, image and likeness (Gulf News); V6 Velugu reports that he had gone to that court in September 2025 over the same kind of deepfake videos and that on 26 September it ordered their removal. A September 2026 NewsX recap reports that Hyderabad Police Commissioner V C Sajjanar said the cybercrime team was working to trace those responsible.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool

South Korea: AI-generated images depicting Girls' Generation's YoonA as pregnant spread online with false claims; her agency SM Entertainment says it has already filed a criminal complaint

SM Entertainment said on 28 September 2026 that illegal AI-generated images synthesising the likeness of YoonA (Im Yoon-ah), singer and actor of Girls' Generation, and false claims built on them had been made and spread on social media and online communities. Korean outlets describe images showing her apparently pregnant with a man placing a hand on her belly (his face blurred, per Star News). The agency said it had collected evidence from fan reports to its KWANGYA 119 channel and monitoring, had already filed a criminal complaint, and would respond without leniency or settlement, warning that making, posting or re-sharing the images could breach Korean defamation, portrait-rights and sexual-crime (false video) provisions.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownGemini note-taking in Google Meet

First-person forum account: an agency employee in England says Gemini note-taking in Google Meet kept transcribing two prospective clients after the agency's boss left the call, and that the boss passed their private post-meeting discussion to staff to shape a follow-up pitch

In a public post to r/LegalAdviceUK on 28 September 2026, an employee of a marketing agency in England writes that their boss pitched a prospective client and the client's business partner on a Google Meet call with Gemini note-taking switched on. After the boss said goodbye and left, the two business partners stayed on the call to discuss the proposal and the other agencies they were considering, and Gemini kept taking notes. The boss then sent the employee the notes and transcript, which named a competing agency and included 'personal details of who they spoke to specifically on the call', and asked for a follow-up deck built on what the partners liked and disliked. The poster believes the partners did not know they were still being transcribed. Google's help page says Meet tells all participants when notes are being taken; whether the partners noticed is not known. The account is uncorroborated.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownUnited KingdomUnidentified image tool

Colchester, Essex: a 39-year-old man admitted making indecent images of children after the prosecution said he had used AI on photos taken from social media, including of children as young as nine, to create sexualised images of people known to him; he is due to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court

The Colchester Gazette (24 September 2026, also carried by other Newsquest titles) reports that a 39-year-old man from Colchester admitted at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image. Police had seized two mobile devices in a raid on his address the previous year, holding nearly 2,000 indecent images of children. The prosecutor said he had created 'deepfake sexually explicit images of people known to the defendant', taking photos from Facebook and other social-media accounts and using AI to create new images; some of the children were as young as 12 and nine and had been edited to look as young as five and six. Magistrates declined jurisdiction and he was bailed to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on 26 October 2026. The children are not identified and how many real children were depicted is not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026

22 Sept 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool

Portland, Oregon: an anonymous social-media account posted 17 racist and anti-immigrant images targeting David Douglas High School football players and their coach, some digitally altered including with AI, from 22 September 2026; the school reported content to Portland police

David Douglas High School in Portland warned families in a statement reported on 28 September 2026 about social-media posts targeting its students, athletes, coaches and staff, saying some images and videos had been digitally altered, including with AI, and did not accurately represent those depicted; it reported some of the content to the Portland Police Bureau. KATU, which reviewed the account, reports 17 posts using racist, anti-immigrant and religious stereotypes against football players: one image shows a Latino player in a sombrero being detained by people labelled as ICE agents, another shows a player in a head covering with what appears to be a fake explosive vest, and a Black player is depicted beneath a caption referring to George Floyd. The head coach said students were hurt, and that one student texted him over the weekend after seeing one of the posts: 'Coach, this is terrible. What do I do?' The account references Rex Putnam High School, whose team David Douglas played on the Friday before the report; which along with its district says it has no connection to it. Who runs the account and which images were AI-generated are not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image and video tool

Louisiana police warrant alleges a man made AI nude images and a simulated sex video of a woman without consent and showed them to her; he was arrested

A Louisiana arrest warrant alleges that a man used AI, through an online website, to create nude images and a simulated sex video of a woman without her consent and showed them to her on his phone. Investigators say they reviewed the material she recorded and found AI-generated nude images. He was arrested in September 2026 on one count of unlawful deepfakes; the accusation has not been tried.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

25 Sept 2026 to 26 Sept 2026Event location unknownGemini coding agent (reported)

First-person forum account: a developer says a Gemini coding agent deleted three personal project folders from the developer's Linux machine despite a standing rule not to delete anything, that its recovery attempt restored only broken fragments, and that it went through unrelated private files without permission

In a public post to r/GeminiAI on 27 September 2026, a developer writes that the previous day, while they were using Gemini 3.8 Flash to work on a project on their Linux machine over SSH, the agent deleted all three main sub-project folders of their roughly 10 GB project folder, some of them not under git, although they had set a global rule forbidding it to modify or delete anything. Asked why, the agent said a wildcard caused the deletion. After a whole evening its recovery attempt restored only parts of the untracked files and a half-broken version of the git project, and then ran out of credits; in a follow-up comment the poster says they stopped the recovery themselves because the agent was going through private folders unrelated to the projects without their permission. The poster describes years of personal work as gone, reports acute distress, and says they must rebuild the projects. The account is uncorroborated; the poster writes 'I was careless.'

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

2024IrelandUnidentified image tool

Galway West, Ireland: broadcaster Gráinne Seoige says an AI-generated sexual deepfake image of her circulated on WhatsApp during her 2024 election campaign

Gráinne Seoige, a broadcaster who stood for Fianna Fáil in Galway West in Ireland's 2024 general election, told RTÉ's Prime Time in January 2026 that people close to her alerted her during the campaign to sexualised images of her made with deepfake technology. She says the AI-generated pornographic image was disseminated through WhatsApp, shared hundreds if not thousands of times by her account, and that when gardaí sought its origin some recipients refused to cooperate, so the investigation hit a dead end. She kept silent during the campaign and has described the experience as deeply traumatising, with shame and humiliation lasting almost a year and a half. In a September 2026 interview relayed by RSVP Live from the Sunday Independent she described night terrors of faceless men tearing her clothes off and wearing a long puffer coat everywhere so her body could not be seen. She has since appeared before the Oireachtas media committee (Irish Independent, 21 January 2026), and made a Virgin Media documentary on deepfake abuse, scheduled for broadcast on 5 October 2026. In passages from it quoted by RSVP Live and the Irish Sun on 4 October 2026 she says she was shown the image in September or October 2024, that it made her not want to go outside, that she moved away from her home and that she has had therapy; she also says she believes the image was politically motivated. The Irish Times, reviewing the documentary on 5 October 2026, reports that in it she learns from a Dublin technology company that further images taken from her Instagram account have been manipulated with deepfake software, which was news to her. The tool used to make the image and the person who made it are not identified.

Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 28/09/2026

1 Jul 2024 to 30 Sept 2025Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Tokyo: voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda sued TikTok's operator over at least 188 monetised videos he says were narrated by a generative-AI imitation of his voice; on 30 September 2026 the Tokyo District Court held that a voice can be protected by publicity rights but dismissed his deletion claim because the videos had already been deleted

Kenjiro Tsuda, a Japanese voice actor known for roles in Jujutsu Kaisen, sued the operator of TikTok in the Tokyo District Court in November 2025, seeking removal of videos he says use a generative-AI imitation of his voice without permission. According to his complaint, as reported by Jiji Press, Nikkei and the Asahi Shimbun, an account run by an unidentified person posted at least 188 short videos on urban legends, the occult and trivia between July 2024 and September 2025, narrated in a voice modelled on his; the account had about 210,000 followers, videos averaged 1.47 million views, and his side says the poster earned 500,000 to 750,000 yen a month from TikTok's view-based payments. TikTok's operator said the voice was a generic male voice that the poster said came from AI trained on a friend's voice. The poster deleted the account in May 2026. On 30 September 2026 the court held, as a general principle, that a person's voice is a symbol of personality like a likeness and that using a performer's voice without permission solely to exploit its power to attract customers infringes the right of publicity, the first such ruling in Japan. It dismissed the claim because the videos were already gone and TikTok's operator had no remaining duty to delete them, and it did not decide whether these videos infringed his rights (Nikkei; Asahi Shimbun; TV Asahi). His lawyer said they did not plan to appeal.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 7 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 28/09/2026

9 Sept 2026IndiaUnidentified video tool

Bengaluru: a security guard says a WhatsApp video call in which an alleged deepfake 'Chief Minister Vijay' offered him financial aid led to fake 'processing' charges and a fake CBI fine, and he lost more than Rs 1.04 lakh; Byappanahalli police register an IT Act case (September 2026)

A security guard in Bengaluru, originally from Odisha, told the Times of India that on 9 September 2026 he answered a WhatsApp video call in which a face and voice presented as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay introduced himself in Hindi, asked his name, work and where he lived and pressed him to accept financial help. A 'manager' then promised Rs 11 lakh, said Rs 5 lakh had been allotted to him and asked for a Rs 5,000 exchange charge, then Rs 18,000 to unlock a supposedly locked PIN; a caller posing as a CBI officer demanded more than Rs 50,000 as a fine. The fraudsters sent a fake allotment letter and a purported CBI officer's identity proof. He paid more than Rs 1.04 lakh through a digital payment app before refusing a further Rs 50,000 demand, called the 1930 cybercrime helpline and went to Byappanahalli police, who registered a case under the Information Technology Act. The Times of India says the fraudster allegedly used a deepfake AI-generated video and calls it the first such case reported in the city. No arrest is reported, and no link to the Tamil Nadu CB-CID deepfake case or its Alwar arrest has been established.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

11 Sept 2026 to 23 Sept 2026United States, CanadaChatGPT

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.

Core concern Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution unclear · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image and video tool

Portland, Tennessee: a man who prosecutors say used AI to put children's faces onto sexual images and videos and traded them with a Canadian resident for real child sexual abuse material was sentenced to 30 years in Sumner County in September 2026

The Sumner County (18th Judicial District) District Attorney's Office said a 30-year-old Portland, Tennessee man was sentenced in Sumner County Criminal Court in September 2026 to 30 years in the Tennessee Department of Correction, to be served without probation, parole or early release. According to the prosecutors, he used artificial intelligence to place the faces of children onto images and videos of nude people and of people engaged in sexual acts, then exchanged the material with a Canadian resident for real child sexual abuse material. Canadian authorities found messages and material connected to him after arresting the person he was communicating with and alerted US law enforcement; a joint investigation by Portland police, Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and the TBI led to his arrest in November 2025. He was also charged with tampering with evidence after investigators said he deleted material before officers entered his home to execute a search warrant. The children whose faces were used are not identified, their number is not reported, and the reports do not say which AI tool was used or which offences he was convicted of.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026

Sept 2026GermanyUnidentified image tool

Oldenburg police investigate deepfakes of children sent with threats via school email accounts, AI-made per dpa; police say a juvenile admitted the alleged acts

The Oldenburg-Stadt police inspectorate said on 22 September 2026 that in the preceding days numerous messages had been sent through one or more student accounts on the email servers of Oldenburg schools. The messages contained, among other things, deepfakes (manipulated depictions of children and young people); on an initial assessment some of these could constitute the offence of distributing child or youth sexual abuse material, and some messages contained threats of violence and calls for recipients to harm themselves. According to dpa, students and parents reported the incidents to the police, and dpa, reporting a police spokesman, describes the images as made with artificial intelligence (the written police statement calls them deepfakes, manipulated depictions, without naming AI). Investigators are examining whether unknown persons gained unauthorised access to the accounts; first digital traces were secured and the police are working with the affected schools. RND reports that the accounts were on the IServ school platform, whose provider said it had no access to the messages and believed the incident was limited to Oldenburg. The exact number of schools (the police refer to 'the affected schools', plural), messages, depicted children and recipients, are not reported. On 28 September 2026 the police said a suspect had been identified: a juvenile who, in the investigation so far, admitted the offences he is accused of. The proceedings are conducted by the Aurich public prosecutor's specialised office for violent, pornographic or otherwise youth-endangering content, and the police give no further details about the suspect to protect him.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/09/2026

24 Sept 2026 to 25 Sept 2026ItalyUnidentified image tool

Italian official condemns alleged AI sexualisation of her photograph in a political post

On the eve of the 27-28 September 2026 Chamber by-election in the Reggio Calabria constituency, Roberto Vannacci, leader of Futuro Nazionale, posted on Facebook a campaign image showing Matilde Siracusano, Undersecretary for Relations with Parliament and a Forza Italia deputy, seated at a table beside the centre-right candidate Fabio Roscioli and Senator Claudio Lotito. According to AGI and RaiNews, the white top Siracusano wears under her floral jacket in the original photograph (taken from her Instagram profile, per RaiNews) had disappeared and a much deeper neckline appeared in its place. The Calabrian blog Iacchite', to which Vannacci pointed, said it had published the image on 24 September, that it was not a real photograph but an image produced with artificial intelligence, and that the AI had reconstructed the neck and neckline area; Vannacci reposted it on 25 September without citing the source, according to the blog. Siracusano told Adnkronos that using AI to undress a woman in order to denigrate her was 'squalid'; RaiNews reports her calling it a crime and announcing her intention to file a criminal complaint (querela), while Adnkronos and ANSA say she was weighing one; she told la Repubblica that her lawyers would act. Vannacci replied that his accusers should 'look better' for whom to blame. Ministers and politicians across parties, including Forza Italia leader Antonio Tajani, condemned the post. No complaint filing, investigation or removal of the post is reported in the inspected sources.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 8 sources · Added 27/09/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified image tool

Sonbhadra (Uttar Pradesh): police say a retired official was pressured into transferring about Rs 2.36 crore over one to one-and-a-half months by extortionists who posed as judicial and government officials and used AI-made fake nude images to threaten him; three arrested after a bank manager's alert (September 2026)

Sonbhadra police say a retired official in Uttar Pradesh transferred about Rs 2.36 crore into accounts named by extortionists, including money raised through a loan, before a State Bank of India manager noticed the repeated transfers on 22 September 2026 and alerted the cyber crime police station. At a press briefing on 25 September the superintendent of police said the fraudsters had frightened the man by invoking the higher judiciary and senior government officials (a so-called digital arrest) and had used AI to create fake obscene or nude images to blackmail him with threats of defamation and harm to his family (Times of India, Amar Ujala, ETV Bharat, Newstrack). Police froze about Rs 75 lakh, registered an FIR and arrested three people, including the alleged organiser; the outlets relay one police account, and they describe the AI element differently (images of the victim, or images sent to him during a WhatsApp chat with someone posing as a woman).

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/09/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified video tool

Bhubaneswar (Odisha): the Biju Janata Dal files a police complaint and holds a sit-in at Capital police station alleging that a social-media account is circulating obscene AI deepfake videos of three of its women leaders (26 September 2026)

On 26 September 2026 the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) staged a dharna at Capital police station in Bhubaneswar and lodged a complaint alleging that an account named 'Bana Bichhuati' was circulating obscene and objectionable AI-generated deepfake videos of three of the party's women leaders on social media to malign them (Kalinga TV; KNews Odisha). The party asked police to register a case, obtain the account's IP address and device details from Meta, identify and arrest those responsible, and have the videos removed. The reports relay the party's allegations; Kalinga TV notes that the identity of whoever runs the account has not been independently established, and no police response is reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/09/2026

20 Oct 2025 to 13 Nov 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool

Hampton, New Hampshire: police say a Massachusetts man harassed a Hampton resident for more than a year and posted an AI-generated deepfake video showing the resident being arrested and jailed, events police say never happened; he was indicted on four felony counts of fraudulent use of deepfakes and is held after his bail was revoked

Hampton police say a man from Worcester, Massachusetts harassed a Hampton resident for more than a year through phone calls, texts, emails and online posts, stemming from a perceived past disagreement, and kept going after the victim asked him to stop and after he was served with a stalking order of protection in October 2025. In November 2025 the victim showed police an AI-generated deepfake video that, according to the arrest-warrant affidavit, the man created to humiliate and defame him; it shows the victim being arrested and jailed and includes a structure resembling the victim's Hampton home and images of real people. A police sergeant said the depicted events never happened and that the video was posted on YouTube. A Rockingham County grand jury indicted the man on four Class B felony counts of fraudulent use of deepfakes under RSA 638:26-a, for creating, distributing and presenting a video of an identifiable person on 20 October, 31 October, 7 November and 13 November 2025. He turned himself in on 24 March, was released on bail, was arrested again on 26 August for alleged bail violations and is held at the Rockingham County House of Corrections. Police had the video removed. The AI tool is not named and the victim's own account is relayed only through the police.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 27/09/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool

Gilmer County, Georgia: a vendor who restocked drink machines in local schools used AI applications to turn ordinary photographs of students into child sexual abuse material; prosecutors identified more than 150 underage victims, he was convicted on 118 counts and sentenced on 2 September 2026 to 40 years in prison, and parents of eight students sued Pepsi entities for keeping him on the school route

According to the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted the case as conflict prosecutor, the investigation began in December 2024 when a Gilmer High School student told a school resource officer that a vendor who refilled drink machines on campus had asked her through a social media app to send him pictures. The Gilmer County Sheriff's Office arrested him in January 2025 and searched his devices, car and home. Prosecutors say he downloaded photographs of minors from social media and used AI applications and bots to alter them so the children appeared nude or engaged in sexual activity, and that the material related to more than 150 underage victims in Georgia and other states, many of them Gilmer County students. A Cobb County senior judge found him guilty on 13 August 2026 of 118 counts of sexual exploitation of children and on 2 September 2026, after 19 victim impact statements, sentenced him to 60 years with 40 to serve in prison. Separately, the parents of eight female students aged 12 to 17 sued him, Pepsi Beverage Co. and Pepsi-Cola Sales and Distribution in a suit reported on 28 February 2025, alleging the companies reinstated him to the same school route after students complained that he was photographing them; USA Herald reported the negligence suit again on 26 September 2026 and said Pepsi had not yet responded publicly. The AI tools are not named and the court and status of the civil suit are not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 27/09/2026

Cases may have several effects and sources. Mixed accounts qualify when they include a reported harm or adverse experience. People are counted within individual cases where sources support a number; we do not publish a collection-wide total of distinct people.

A source’s existence, the experience it reports and AI’s causal role are separate questions. A lawsuit records allegations unless a subsequent finding establishes them.

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Last dataset update: 11/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.