1 Oct 2024 to 28 Feb 2025AustraliaUnidentified image and video tool
William Hamish Yeates, then 18, of Netherby in Adelaide, created sexually explicit deepfake images and videos of a teenage girl with whom, his counsel said, he had developed an obsession, using her school graduation photograph, and shared them across multiple accounts on X between October 2024 and February 2025. Appearing in court in February 2026 charged with eight counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent and 12 counts of using a carriage service in a harassing or offensive way, he became the first person in Australia prosecuted under the Commonwealth offence introduced in 2024 against adult deepfake pornography; in April 2026 he pleaded guilty to two counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent (October 2024 to February 2025) and two of the carriage-service offence, and the remaining counts were withdrawn. At a pre-sentence hearing in the South Australian District Court on 22 September 2026 the victim, now 19, told the court that the first time she saw her actual graduation picture was on a pornography website beside altered videos of her with her full name and school attached, that she feels sick whenever she sees the photo, that the discovery led to the darkest period of her life, and that although the images were fake their impact was painfully real. Yeates read an apology; his counsel cited diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and compulsive sexual behaviour disorder and asked for no custody; the Commonwealth prosecutor sought imprisonment. On 27 October 2026, according to AAP, Judge Anne Barnett sentenced him in the South Australian District Court to two years and three months' prison, suspended on condition that he enter a three-year, $500 good behaviour bond, and ordered him to pay the victim's medical expenses and forfeit a phone and laptop seized by police; the judge said the availability of AI tools had increased the capacity for offending and to cause substantial harm, and that the victim remains frightened the content will resurface.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/09/2026
Jun 2026 to Aug 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
Florida police arrested a man in September 2026 and charged him with creating and promoting altered sexual depictions of a woman, sexual cyberharassment and stalking. Police say a forensic examination of his devices showed he used AI to make sexually explicit images of her, some of them from photographs taken from social media and other online sources. They say several more women may have been depicted. The charges had not been tried at review.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 20/09/2026
Apr 2025MalaysiaUnidentified image tool
In April 2025 Johor police arrested a 16-year-old pupil of a private Chinese independent secondary school in Kulai district after an 18-year-old woman reported on 3 April that nude images edited with her face were circulating on social media and being offered for sale. Police said the boy used an AI application to edit photos taken from victims' social media accounts and sold the images at RM2 each; a phone was seized and a 19-year-old was later remanded alongside him. Eight victim reports at the time of the arrest on 8 April grew to 22 by 12 April and 29 by 15 April. The Deputy Communications Minister, who is also the Kulai MP, said on 9 April that most victims were alumni but some were current pupils as young as 14, and on 12 April that 38 people had been identified, the youngest 12 or 13, and her office helped victims lodge reports. A female pupil's viral post said a Telegram chat room of more than 200 members shared the composites and that the school had initially treated the matter as a minor infraction; the school board expelled the boy, acknowledged its slow handling, offered counselling and legal aid, and the principal resigned on 12 April. On 23 April 2025 the boy pleaded guilty at the Kulai Magistrate's Court to possessing 14 pornographic images and not guilty to a charge under Section 5 of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 of producing sexual abuse material by editing a 17-year-old classmate's image; no verdict on that charge has been found.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 12 sources, 8 underlying accounts · Added 20/09/2026
Nov 2025South KoreaUnidentified image tool
On 10 September 2026 the Seoul Northern District Court sentenced a 30-year-old Chinese national doctoral student to 18 months in prison for habitually producing manipulated sexual images of seven women who worked in his university research laboratory. Investigators found 1,141 files made over about six months from November 2025, and search records for ways to bypass the safeguards of the generative AI Grok; the court found no evidence of distribution. A lawyer for five of the victims said they continued to suffer fear, trauma and distress. Prosecutors had sought three years and public disclosure of his identity, which the court declined.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 15/09/2026
Apr 2026 to Jun 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
Illinois police and prosecutors charged a middle-school teacher in July 2026 with eight felony child-pornography counts. They say a forensic examination of his phone found photographs of students, taken at school, that had been altered with an AI app into nude or explicit images, and prosecutors told a detention hearing the app was on the phone. A judge ordered him detained and the school board dismissed him; the charges are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 06/07/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
In a release of 29 May 2026, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said a man had been arrested and charged under the state's Senate Bill 20 with possession of computer-generated child sexual abuse material. DPS said FBI agents who examined his devices in April 2026 found more than 900 AI-generated sexual images and videos of children, as well as non-AI abuse images, and that investigators determined he had taken photos from public pages affiliated with South Texas schools and used AI tools to “nudify” the children. DPS said about 30 child victims had been identified and that the FBI was coordinating victim services. The tools are not named. These are law-enforcement allegations that had not been tested in court, and no later court report was found by 25 October 2026.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/06/2026
19 May 2025 to 17 Apr 2026United StatesUnidentified image and video tool
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged two men in separate cases under the TAKE IT DOWN Act. The sworn complaints allege that each published albums of AI-generated sexual images and videos of identifiable women on an adult-content platform: about 90 women in one case and at least 50 in the other, including acquaintances and recent high-school graduates whose ordinary photographs were turned into sexual videos. The charges are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/06/2026
1 Aug 2024 to 26 Sept 2024South KoreaUnidentified image tool
In late August 2024, journalist Ko Narin of The Hankyoreh exposed networks of Telegram rooms in South Korea where AI tools were used to turn ordinary photos of women and girls — middle and high school pupils, university students, teachers and servicewomen — into sexual deepfakes, shared with their identities in school- and university-specific 'humiliation rooms'. Police figures showed 297 deepfake cases in January-July 2024 (vs 180 in all of 2023); the education ministry counted more than 900 victimized students, teachers and staff; President Yoon ordered a crackdown; and on 26 September 2024 the National Assembly criminalized possessing or viewing sexually explicit deepfakes. Victims were often minors and perpetrators mostly teenagers.
Core concern Critical reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 29/01/2026
26 Jul 2025 to 26 Oct 2025United StatesUnidentified image and video tool
Police in New Hampshire allege that a man stalked a woman for more than a year and used artificial intelligence tools to manipulate genuine photographs into sexual images and videos of her that were shared without her consent. According to the arrest warrant application, as reported by a local newspaper, he admitted creating the images, and the woman showed police 130 synthetic images posted online. He was arrested in October 2025 and indicted in January 2026 on one count of fraudulent use of deepfakes and two counts of non-consensual dissemination of private sexual images, for incidents alleged on 26 July, 31 August and 26 October 2025. He has pleaded not guilty, and no verdict had been reported at review. The people involved are not named here.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 13/01/2026