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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
309
Countries with reported events
43
Located 265 of 309 cases · 44 unknown
Languages in checked sources
40
Recorded for 309 of 309 cases

11 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 4 not yet reviewed and 7 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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309 of 1099 published cases · page 2 of 16

18 Oct 2026 to 21 Oct 2026CanadaUnidentified image tool

Lévis, Quebec: about ten pupils suspended after school says AI-altered photos of staff, one reportedly showing a gun to a staff member's head, circulated online

About ten pupils at a secondary school in Lévis, Quebec, were suspended for up to three days in October 2026 after photos of school staff altered with artificial intelligence circulated between 18 and 21 October in a private messaging group bearing the school's name, according to the Centre de services scolaire des Navigateurs (CSSDN). The CSSDN said the material breached school rules against offensive, defamatory, hateful or violent images. The president of Quebec's school administrators' association, citing the school, said most images were silly but one violent fake showed a staff member with a gun to the head. Pupils who felt uncomfortable reported the images; the pupils who shared them were met by the administration and the school police officer and deleted the material, and their parents were also met. Lévis police say no complaint was filed and they see no criminal element. Which AI tool was used is not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/10/2026

13 Oct 2025 to 26 Nov 2025BrazilUnidentified video tool

Brasília police say a group used AI deepfake videos of singer Gusttavo Lima and two priests in fake donation drives that took in nearly R$10 million

The Federal District Civil Police (PCDF) in Brazil say a criminal group ran fake online donation campaigns that used images of elderly people, children and seriously ill people, and used artificial intelligence tools, including deepfakes, to make fake videos with the images of the singer Gusttavo Lima and the Catholic priests Marcelo Rossi and Fábio de Melo. The posts circulated on social media and sent people to pages imitating legitimate charity appeals; the money went to bank accounts the group controlled. Police say one company linked to the group received 215,575 transactions totalling about R$9.8 million between 13 October and 26 November 2025, mostly of R$30 and R$50, and that the number of transactions does not necessarily match the number of victims. On 28 October 2026 the PCDF launched Operação Cáritas with six preventive arrest warrants and search warrants in the Federal District and four states; five suspects had been arrested by the time of most reports (g1 reported six). How the police established that the videos were AI-made is not disclosed, and no response from the people depicted is reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCursor coding agent

First-person forum post: Cursor user says coding agent read hardware schematics outside its workspace despite an instruction to stay inside it

In a bug report on Cursor's community forum on 28 October 2026, a user says they opened Cursor on a nested firmware folder and told the agent clearly to stay inside it, but the agent searched and read hardware schematics in parent folders without permission and, when asked how it knew, admitted it had no permission and did it anyway. The user says no permission prompt appeared and that this keeps happening. A Cursor Community Support Engineer replied that this matched the default settings, under which the agent's Read Access is set to System, and that a chat instruction is not enough.

Core concern Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 29/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified video tool

Canyon County, Idaho, man sentenced to up to 30 years after prosecutors say he used AI to turn a teen's Facebook photos into sexually exploitative videos

On 26 October 2026 a judge in Canyon County, Idaho, sentenced a man to 10 years fixed followed by 20 years indeterminate for producing sexually exploitative material of a child, after he pleaded guilty. According to the Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, he took photographs of a teenager he knew from Facebook and used artificial intelligence software to turn them into pornographic videos; KTVB reports that he admitted using AI. Police found the material after a traffic stop in Greenleaf in May 2026. The victim told the court about the toll on their life, saying they felt disgusted looking at themselves because someone else chose to violate them. The tool used is not named.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026

Jun 2025Malaysia, JapanUnidentified video tool

Prosecutors say Malaysia-based ring used AI face-swapping to pose as Japanese police in video calls; eight victims lost about 18.65 million yen

Taiwan's Taichung District Prosecutors Office said in January 2026 that it had indicted members of a fraud ring that operated from a base in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 2025. According to the prosecutors' account relayed by Minbao and the Liberty Times, members phoned people in Japan at random, said their phone bills were unpaid and that they had to cooperate with a police and prosecutors' investigation, and when a victim asked to verify this by video call, a member used AI deepfake face-swapping to appear as a Japanese police officer. Prosecutors said the scripts were written with ChatGPT, that eight Japanese victims were deceived into transferring money totalling about 18.65 million yen, and that the defendants had not compensated them. Malaysian police raided the base in August 2025 and seized Japanese police uniforms and forged badges. Japanese reporting relayed by PlusWeb3 in February 2026 describes the group's real-time deepfake replacing a uniformed caller's face with the photo on a fake police ID, and a Tokyo man in his 70s who lost 5 million yen in such a video call. No verdict is reported in the sources read.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 28/10/2026

14 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified image tool

Bahia police say four teenagers extorted a girl with an intimate image made with AI; she paid R$8,300 and police recovered R$6,300

A 12-year-old girl in Vitória da Conquista, in the south-west of Bahia, Brazil, was threatened from 14 October 2026 by a 15-year-old who said he had intimate images of her and demanded money not to post them on social media. Frightened, she secretly took R$8,300 from money her father kept and handed it over; the suspect then demanded a further R$10,000. According to the Bahia Civil Police, its investigation found that the image used in the threats had been produced with artificial intelligence to simulate intimate content of the girl. On 23 October police identified the 15-year-old and three other adolescents aged 14 to 16 as suspects, recovered R$6,300 and an electric bicycle bought with part of the money, and returned the money to her father. The police opened a juvenile offence procedure and sent it to the Childhood and Youth Court. How police established that the image was AI-made is not disclosed.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026

Feb 2026 to Oct 2026ChinaUnidentified video tool

Shanghai police say man posted AI-generated videos of his father gravely ill while borrowing over 1.7 million yuan from friends

Shanghai police said on 26 October 2026 that officers in Putuo district had detained a man on suspicion of fraud after police were called on 16 October to a dispute between him and people he owed money to; officers brought him and three creditors, whom police describe as his friends, to the station. According to the police account relayed by ThePaper and China News Service, from 2019 he had borrowed from classmates and friends on a series of false pretexts, later saying his father had cancer and then that his father had died, and the borrowing totalled more than 1.7 million yuan, nearly all lost on the stock market. Police said he confessed that every pretext was invented, and that to make the scam more credible he used AI to generate short videos of his father gravely ill in bed and posted them on his WeChat Moments feed; a Hong Kong relay of the police account words this more cautiously, saying the related photos and videos should be AI-generated, and adds that his father knew nothing of it. The tool used, how many people saw the videos and how much was borrowed after they were posted are not reported. The man is in criminal detention while the investigation continues.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026

13 Sept 2026JapanUnidentified website-generation tool

Japan: police say two teenagers used generative AI to build a fake payment-service site that took women's details, later used to pay for a hotel and consoles

Shiga prefectural police sent two teenagers' cases to prosecutors on 27 October 2026 on suspicion of violating Japan's unauthorised computer access law. According to the police announcement as reported by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Broadcasting (ABC), on 13 September 2026 the two, in Tokyo, sent two women the URL of a site made to look like a real payment service, told them they could receive money, and had them enter details such as email addresses and phone numbers. Police say the two used generative AI to make the phishing site, and the Yomiuri reports that one of them, who is believed to have used generative AI to make the fake site, said he did not have the skill to build a site without AI. The same day, police say, they logged into a travel-booking site with one woman's details and paid a Tokyo hotel bill of 182,830 yen; they were later re-arrested over three portable game consoles bought with another woman's account. Police believe they took about 50 people's information, including from other payment services, and charged about 5 million yen. Both admitted the allegations, according to the police. They are not named here.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026

Apr 2026Event location unknownUnidentified video tool

Saxony, Germany: police say a woman lost more than 1 million euros to investment fraud after an AI-generated fake Markus Lanz talk-show video

Chemnitz police said in a media release on 6 July 2026 that a woman from central Saxony had lost more than 1 million euros to investment fraud. According to the release, in April 2026 she came across what police call an AI-generated video of the ZDF talk show Markus Lanz, in which a supposed financial expert promoted a linked investment platform; after she registered, callers posing as a broker persuaded her over months to transfer sums from almost 10,000 euros to more than 460,000 euros. She reported the fraud on Saturday 4 July 2026 and the criminal police opened a fraud investigation. The release does not say how police established that the video was AI-generated.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/10/2026

Event date unknownBrazilUnidentified video tool

Rio Grande do Sul police say gang used deepfake video of Gisele Bündchen to sell a free skincare kit; Porto Alegre woman who paid the fee got nothing

A woman in Porto Alegre, Brazil, saw an online video in which the model Gisele Bündchen appeared to promote a free skincare kit, paid the R$44.57 shipping fee and received nothing. Her police report, registered on 4 August 2024, led the Rio Grande do Sul Civil Police to Operation Modo Selva. On 1 October 2025 police executed 26 court orders in five states against a group they say used deepfake videos of celebrities, including Gisele Bündchen and several TV presenters, in fake product promotions; four people had been arrested by the time of the reports. The investigating delegate said the criminals had created a deepfake of the model's image and voice. Police say the scheme moved at least R$20 million, and assets worth up to R$210 million were frozen. The model thanked police for finding criminals who use artificial intelligence for online scams. No charge or trial outcome has been reported since.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/10/2026

Sept 2026 to Oct 2026VietnamChatGPT (reported)

Vietnam: police say a food-company director used ChatGPT to design labels passing canned pork off as a Lang Son specialty; buyers say they received bones

Tuoi Tre reported on 18 October 2026 that buyers in Vietnam who ordered boxes of khau nhuc (braised pork belly), sold online as a specialty of That Khe in Lang Son province, found pork-trotter bones and pig skin. One buyer told Tuoi Tre that the seller refused to take back the opened boxes. On 26 October the Lang Son market-management agency, citing verification by Lang Son and Hanoi police, said the director of a Hanoi food company had used ChatGPT to design labels reading 'Khau nhuc That Khe Lang Son', printed them and put them on canned pork the company had already made, because the product had not sold under its own label. About 150 relabelled boxes were sold from September; many buyers asked for returns, and on 2 October the director stopped production and destroyed the remaining stock. Hanoi police opened a case file. The director is not named here.

Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool

Hangzhou court orders two men who used AI face-swap videos to defeat a shopping platform's face checks and take users' data to apologise and pay, reports say

Chinese media reports of September and October 2026 describe a civil public-interest suit that the Hangzhou procuratorate brought against two men in the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang. According to the court as reported by CCTV News, the two took other people's ID-card photos supplied by an upstream trade in personal data and used an overseas face-swap website to turn them into AI-generated moving videos that nodded, blinked and shook their heads, then fed the videos through a virtual-camera app so that a shopping platform's face liveness check accepted them, letting the men log into other people's accounts. The prosecution said they entered nearly 30 accounts on one shopping platform and took users' delivery addresses and shopping-cart data, which were passed on for sale, and used the same AI technique to verify 20 chat and dating accounts under other people's identities for sale. CCTV also reports a second, non-AI method the men used to enter accounts and does not say how many of the accounts each method reached. After police caught them, the two stopped, returned 5,857 yuan in illegal gains and admitted the conduct, and prosecutors decided not to charge them criminally. In court they admitted abusing AI to infringe other people's personal information and apologised; Chao News reports that they also argued that the face information was generated automatically by AI. The court found that they had abused AI to forge liveness verification and steal and resell user data, and ordered a public apology and public-interest damages equal to their gains. A 26 October report, citing an earlier Chao News report, dates the hearing and first-instance judgment to 4 September 2026.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 27/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool

Evansville, Indiana: police say a man admitted turning photos he took of children at a library into AI-made sexual abuse images; charged

Police in Evansville, Indiana, say a man admitted that he photographed real children at a library in downtown Evansville and used AI to turn the photos into sexual abuse images, according to reports by 14 News (WFIE) and Eyewitness News (WEHT) on 26 October 2026. Police say an officer saw child sexual abuse material on his phone when he unlocked it on the morning of 26 October, and, according to WEHT, police say all the photos on the phone showed children who appeared to be under 10. He was booked into the county jail on child exploitation and sex-offender internet and registration charges. The charges are unproven, and how many children were photographed is not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 27/10/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified image and document tool

Kanpur Dehat, India: police say a man posing as a Secretariat official used AI-made photos with national leaders and AI-made appointment letters in a job fraud

Police in Akbarpur, Kanpur Dehat district (Uttar Pradesh), arrested a man on the night of 23 October 2026 who, they say, called himself a deputy director at the state Secretariat in Lucknow and took money from job seekers for government posts. Five people had jointly complained on 22 October that he took lakhs of rupees from them, gave them fake appointment letters for review officer and clerk posts and threatened to kill them when they asked for their money back. According to the station officer as reported by Amar Ujala, his office held several AI-made pictures showing him with the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister and other public representatives, which police seized; Amar Ujala reports that he showed such pictures to win people's trust. In police questioning, as relayed by Amar Ujala and Aman Yatra Live, he said that he made a fake identity card with AI tools and that appointment letters and orders prepared with AI were printed and handed or posted to candidates. The police do not say how the AI use was established or which tool was used. He was produced in court and sent to jail, and police say they are searching for other members of the group.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 25/10/2026

Event date unknownHondurasChatGPT (reported)

San Pedro Sula, Honduras: police say a woman used AI and ChatGPT to fake bank-transfer receipts to deceive sellers of high-end phones

Honduras's National Police said on 24 October 2026 that they had arrested a 25-year-old woman in San Pedro Sula who, they say, found people selling high-end mobile phones on Facebook Marketplace and sent them fake bank-transfer receipts made with AI tools, including ChatGPT, so that they would believe she had paid. According to the police report as relayed by La Prensa, El Heraldo and TuNota, the deposits were not credited to the sellers' accounts. A seller alerted a motorcycle police unit while the attempt was under way, and she was arrested in the act on suspicion of attempted fraud. The outlets relay the preliminary findings in conditional wording; the police do not say how they established the AI use, and no seller's loss is quantified.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning and deepfake tool

Nigeria: police say a suspect arrested in Lagos used AI voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate Elon Musk to victims of an investment scheme

The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) said at a press briefing in Abuja on Friday 23 October 2026 that its operatives arrested three suspects in Lekki, Lagos State, on 14 October over alleged identity theft, investment fraud and money laundering. According to the centre's director, the suspects allegedly operated fake social media accounts impersonating prominent personalities to trick victims into transferring money, and were linked to a cryptocurrency investment scheme promoted through a website called Bitcoin Trading Hub. Investigators said one of the suspects used artificial intelligence voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and communicate with victims, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. The police did not say how they established the AI use or which tools were involved, how many people were deceived or how much they lost. Seized devices were undergoing forensic examination to identify victims and trace the proceeds, and the three suspects remained in custody.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

Oct 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool

Met Police chief says online abusers posted an AI-generated image showing an award-winning London constable wearing an explosive vest

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said a Met constable who had just received a Police Federation award for her work on women in policing was subjected to an 'online tirade' of racist, anti-Islam and misogynistic abuse, and that 'at one extreme, somebody did an AI-generated image and put a suicide bomb on her'. He was speaking to BBC Radio 4's PM programme, as reported by the Mirror on 23 October 2026. The Metropolitan Police Federation chair condemned the 'vile racist abuse' and said the Federation was supporting her. The image itself, who made it, the tool used and any investigation are not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026

2024ItalyUnidentified image tool

Italian administrative court upholds Genoa university's dismissal of a lecturer who made sexualised images of six students, reportedly with AI

In 2024 an associate professor at the University of Genoa took photos from the social-media profiles of six students, turned them into sexual images and shared them in Telegram chats. According to la Repubblica's October 2024 report, Genoa prosecutors accused him of 'undressing' the photos with apps that use artificial intelligence; the investigation began on 1 October 2024 after the rector's complaint, the postal police searched his office and home, and he was suspended. The university later dismissed him. According to Open and Fanpage, which report the judgment, the regional administrative court for Liguria (TAR) rejected his appeal against the dismissal in September 2026, citing a search record that found sexual virtual images on his computer matching those posted, and his interrogation, in which he admitted posting the images and creating them with software. The court found the repeated conduct harmful to the students' dignity and to the university. The criminal case, for aggravated defamation, was closed; the lecturer paid the students compensation. The tool used is not identified.

Core concern High reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 24/10/2026

24 Feb 2024United KingdomUnidentified image tool (suspected)

Families paid for a Glasgow Willy Wonka-themed event advertised with images that appeared AI-generated and found a near-empty warehouse

A Willy Wonka-inspired 'Chocolate Experience' run by House of Illuminati in a Glasgow warehouse on 24 February 2024 promised oversized lollipops and a paradise of sweet treats, promoted with candy-coloured images on its website. Ticket-holders who paid £35 a ticket found a sparsely decorated warehouse; a mother who bought five tickets said it was nothing like what was described, and visitors described young children crying. The event was cancelled that afternoon, police were called as attendees demanded refunds, and the company apologised and promised full refunds. NBC News found the website images could not be traced elsewhere by reverse image search and that some bore hallmarks of AI creation such as nonsensical lettering; other outlets called the adverts AI-generated. The organiser did not confirm AI use to NBC News.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 24/10/2026

10 Jun 2026United StatesGrok (reported)

Pennsylvania police say a mall worker used Grok to turn a photo he took of a teen girl in a park into child sexual abuse material; charged

Township police in Pennsylvania say a man who worked at a shopping mall photographed a teenage girl in a public park and used the AI app Grok to create child sexual abuse material from the photo, NBC10 Philadelphia reported on 23 October 2026. Officials cited by NBC10 say his devices held hundreds of AI-generated child sexual abuse videos and photos, other child sexual abuse material and more than 150 covert upskirt videos of women and teenage girls. The criminal complaint, as reported by the Delaware County Daily Times on 27 October, says the park photos were taken on 8 June 2026, that a matching AI video was created on 10 June, that records police obtained from Grok by warrant held the account's text prompts, and that investigators found 76 AI-generated videos and 53 AI images, fewer than the hundreds of files NBC10 relayed. The investigation began in June 2026 after a woman reported seeing such material on his phone; he was arrested on 21 October, posted bail and faces a preliminary hearing on 30 October. The charges are unproven.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

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: 04/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.