10 Apr 2026South AfricaChatGPT (reported)
South Africa's Department of Communications and Digital Technologies placed two officials on precautionary suspension with immediate effect, a step the director-general confirmed on 30 April 2026, pending an investigation into the Draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy, which had been gazetted for public comment on 10 April and was withdrawn after News24 and others found fictitious academic sources in its reference list. The department said the irresponsible use of AI tools had compromised the integrity of the document. Briefing Parliament's portfolio committee on 26 May, Minister Solly Malatsi said the two officials were suspended for failing to declare that they used AI, that it had been said ChatGPT was used in editing the document, and that there had been massive oversight and non-disclosure around the use of AI in the policy and its references. The director-general told the committee that the officials had used AI to translate a document from Chile from Spanish into English and that the references came from that document. A new expert panel is guiding a redraft. The officials are not named and the outcome of the investigation is not reported in the sources read.
Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 17/10/2026
8 Nov 2024ItalyUnidentified video tool
The satirical television programme Striscia la Notizia, published by R.T.I., aired segments in which the image and voice of the journalist Enrico Mentana, director of La7's news bulletin, were, according to the Garante, manipulated with AI systems so that he appeared in his own studio making statements he never made (its decision describes real footage from his studio altered by AI dubbing); a November 2024 preview describes one such segment. After Mentana complained, Italy's data protection authority (Garante) found on 23 July 2026 that the realism of the images, the low perceptibility of the alteration and the plausibility of the statements could lead the public to think the content authentic, and that the disclaimers were not clear enough. It found breaches of GDPR Articles 5 and 25, issued a warning to R.T.I. and prohibited further processing of his data in that way. The Garante noted the numerous mocking or offensive messages he received on social media. R.T.I. argued that the segments were satire, that it only dubbed licensed footage with a computer-generated voice, and that its disclaimers made the deepfake evident. No fine was imposed.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 17/10/2026
2025Event location unknownUnidentified image and video tool
In October 2025 Swedish media, citing Finansinspektionen, reported that more than 5,000 small savers had lost about half a billion kronor that year in pump-and-dump share frauds, and a Finansinspektionen official said some had lost several million kronor. An investigator at the Economic Crime Authority told TT that the frauds, run from abroad, use a refined method with the latest AI technology. TV4 described the usual pattern as a Facebook tip in which a well-known finance profile appears to recommend a safe investment, leading to a WhatsApp group. The investor Günter Mårder said 30 to 40 adverts and AI-produced films showed him speaking, that about 15 to 20 finance profiles had been used, and that his whole summer went on handling questions. Sveriges Radio reported that the financial journalist Gabriel Mellqvist's identity had been used and that he was frustrated at the damage to his professional reputation and at Meta's inaction. The authority does not say how the AI use was established, and the savers figure is not tied to the AI adverts.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 17/10/2026
Jul 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool
A 23-year-old woman told the news site Kaktus.media that in July 2026 she learned that acquaintances had received a nude image of her made with AI from her photograph, and that the sender was a classmate. She says he first told her an app had generated and sent the image by itself, then admitted that he had undressed her Instagram photo through AI himself. In a written statement to the outlet the accused says he used a Telegram bot offering AI photo processing in May or June 2022 and was shocked by the result, and that the images were sent from his Telegram account on the night of 11 to 12 July 2026 by people who had hacked it. The woman says she suffered severe psychological stress and harm to her reputation. She filed a complaint with a district police department on 21 July; after she complained to the prosecutor's office the matter moved to another district department. That department told Kaktus.media that, because the review period expired before expert results arrived, it had refused to open a criminal case and had ordered a new examination. Her lawyer says four motions filed on 5 August have gone unanswered.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 17/10/2026
14 Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, as reported by CBS News Miami, WFLA and WTSP, deputies responded to a high school in Riverview, Florida, on 14 October 2026 after administrators received an email containing a screenshot of an Instagram post threatening a shooting at the school. The post appeared to come from a male student. Detectives interviewed him and determined that the post did not come from him. The sheriff's office's communications chief said detectives very quickly realised the post was AI-altered and linked it to his ex-girlfriend, a teenage former student. Police say she admitted sending the email knowing that the image had been altered using AI. She was arrested and charged with making a written or electronic threat to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism, unlawful use of a two-way communications device and disrupting a school campus or function. The tool used and how detectives established the alteration are not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026
11 Dec 2025NetherlandsUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)
On 11 December 2025 an examination board at Maastricht University found that a European Law School student had committed fraud in a weekly assignment whose purpose was to find and correctly cite legal sources. The board said three of the four sources contained wrong journals, years, titles and page numbers, that the sources did not exist, and that the way they were included pointed to the use of AI; it concluded the student had made unauthorised use of AI. The sanction was a formal warning in the student's file, invalidation of all assessment components of the course and exclusion from the resit. The student argued that no technical analysis or AI-detection tool had been used, that she was never asked whether she had used AI, and that the errors came from completing the work in a hurry from memory and notes with a poor internet connection. The university's examination appeals board rejected her appeal on 5 March 2026, and on 12 August 2026 the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State dismissed her further appeal and her claim for damages for reputational and psychological harm.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 16/10/2026
2026SpainUnidentified AI drafting tool
The Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) fined a lawyer 420 euros for breaching the duty of truthfulness and good faith, after an appeal the lawyer filed contained 48 citations of Supreme Court judgments and a report of the General Council of the Judiciary that did not exist. According to the court's order, as described in its press release of 13 February 2026, the lawyer used a general-purpose AI tool to draft the appeal and did not check a single citation against the free public case-law database; the court's documentalist verified that the references were false. The court referred the matter to the lawyer's bar association for possible disciplinary action and set the fine at about half the annual cost of a legal-specific AI tool, taking into account that the lawyer admitted the facts and expressed remorse. The court had first flagged the citations in its judgment dismissing the appeal, reported on 5 January 2026, which opened a separate proceeding. The lawyer told the court of comments and mockery from colleagues after the case became public.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026
Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified AI tool (suspected)
In a judgment of 15 October 2026 dismissing two appeals against insolvency proceedings concerning two hotel-operating companies, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India recorded that during the hearing the appellants' side had placed on record a compilation of judgments which, according to the respondents, was replete with AI-generated non-existent judgments. The Court recorded that the appellants' advocate-on-record, when questioned, sought to shift the entire blame onto the appellants while feigning ignorance of what the compilation contained, and that the appellants' senior counsel then took the blame on himself and prayed for forgiveness on their behalf. The Court had proposed exemplary costs against the appellants over the incident but deleted that direction after being told that the first appellant had died. The judgment does not identify the disputed judgments, does not make its own finding that they were AI-generated, and does not name any AI tool.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026
Aug 2026Event location unknownGoogle AI Mode
In late August 2026 a colleague told a German physician, until that summer a chief physician at a hospital, that searching his name with the word for suspension in Google's AI Mode produced what read like a factual report: that he had been suspended and dismissed and had received a suspended sentence for sexual coercion. According to legal news site beck-aktuell, none of it concerned him; the AI had apparently attached facts about another former senior employee of the same hospital to his name, and the newspaper articles it linked as sources did not name him. Google said it had reviewed his complaint and would take no action, and a lawyer's warning letter also failed. On 24 September 2026 the Aachen Regional Court issued a preliminary injunction (8 O 268/26) barring Google Ireland Limited from spreading the claims through AI Mode, finding that they violated his personality rights and that Google is responsible for its AI search answers.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026
11 Oct 2026Event location unknownPangram AI-text detector
A week after a Zimbabwean writer won the £10,000 2026 Caine Prize for African Writing, The Atlantic published an article on Sunday 11 October 2026 whose central evidence was a scan by Pangram, an AI-text detection tool, flagging almost the entire winning story as AI-generated. The Caine Prize said it had begun a review: according to its chair, the author would send documentation of his drafts and the prize was talking to the judges and to the magazine that first published the story. The chair told the BBC that The Atlantic had published before a full investigation, tainting the prize and the winner, and said a detector should not be the final arbiter. The author denied using AI and said he had a documented history of the story's development; his literary agency said it was confident the story was his own work. No finding has been announced.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 14/10/2026
Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
In October 2026 the San Dieguito Faculty Association, a California union representing district educators and staff that has endorsed candidate Amy Flicker for a San Dieguito Union High School District trustee seat, accused the campaign of her opponent, Cajon Valley Union School District superintendent David Ray Miyashiro, of using AI 'to generate deceptive, sexist imagery' in a campaign flyer. The flyer, as published by the Daily Mail, shows Flicker behind a table of baked goods labelled 'Non-profit volunteer' beside Miyashiro at a microphone labelled 'District superintendent', and carries the small-print disclosure 'Ad generated or substantially altered using artificial intelligence.' Flicker said that using AI to manipulate her likeness diminished her public service into a condescending stereotype. The campaign's response is not reported, and which parts of the image were generated or altered is not stated.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026
Jun 2025 to Jul 2025Event location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
A State Department cable dated 3 July 2025, sent to all US embassies and consulates and reported by The Washington Post, AP and The Guardian, said an impostor posing as Secretary of State Marco Rubio had contacted at least five senior officials, including three foreign ministers and a US governor, by text, Signal and voicemail, with the aim of gaining access to information or accounts. According to AP, two senior officials and the cable described the attempts as using technology driven by artificial intelligence; the Guardian reports that the messages mimicked Rubio's voice and writing style. The department said it was investigating and advised all employees and foreign governments. One official told AP the attempts had been unsuccessful; the technical basis for the AI description was not disclosed.
Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026
20 Jun 2025MalaysiaUnidentified video tool
Malay Mail, carrying a Bernama report of a Selangor police statement, reports that police were investigating a video that began circulating on TikTok on 20 June 2025. It showed an individual resembling former inspector-general of police Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani and purportedly linked him to receiving financial assistance from a person titled 'Datuk', with the money deposited into a bank account. Selangor police chief Hussein Omar Khan said the video was fake and had been manipulated using artificial intelligence, that the claims were untrue and baseless, and that the former police chief never issued any statement as depicted. Acryl Sani lodged a police report denying that the video contained any official statement from him. Police opened an investigation under Section 419 of the Penal Code and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998. The statement does not say how police established that AI was used, and the tool is not named.
Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 13/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownPangram AI-text detector (reported)
In a post to r/TrueOffMyChest on 11 October 2026, a writer who had posted fan fiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3) since 2023 says a reader accused them of using AI and said that Pangram, an AI-text detector, had rated their work 100% AI. The writer says they have never used AI. They say they then ran Pangram themselves on something written on the spot and on texts from their high-school years in the 2010s, and each came back 100% AI. They say they deleted all their works and their AO3 account rather than face further accusations, and that they feel sad and can never repost the works. In a reply the writer says the accuser was a regular reader who had commented for years. The account is uncorroborated: the accusation, the Pangram results and the deleted works were not published.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 12/10/2026
4 Jun 2026TaiwanUnidentified image tool
On the evening of 4 June 2026 an account on X posted a fabricated photo showing Puma Shen (沈伯洋), the Democratic Progressive Party's prospective candidate for Taipei mayor, beside a scantily dressed woman at a table with white powder and apparent drug paraphernalia, suggesting drug use and sex. According to the Taipei District Prosecutors Office decision reported by the Liberty Times and TaiSounds, the account used AI technology to synthesise the image, and it was then reposted by other accounts. On 7 June a 66-year-old man shared it on Facebook with a real photo of Shen and the comment 'does it look alike?'. Shen, who considered his reputation seriously damaged, filed a complaint with the Investigation Bureau's Taipei office, whose deepfake-detection software (Reality Defender) returned 'deepfake detected', and two further tools found the image synthetic. Prosecutors concluded that the man's reposting amounted to aggravated defamation; because he confessed, deleted the posts, published an apology and Shen agreed in writing, they deferred prosecution for two years on 12 October 2026 and ordered ten law-education sessions. The X account's IP address was traced to China and is under separate investigation. Shen is named as a public political figure and the complainant; the resharer is not named.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/10/2026
25 Sept 2026 to 9 Oct 2026ChinaUnidentified video tool
After the musician Liu Huan died on 25 September 2026, videos appeared on a Chinese social platform in which an account calling itself 'Teacher Liu's wife' claimed to be his widow, described his final days over clips of his performances, and then promoted a health powder through a shopping link. According to reporting by Jimu News and China Youth Daily compiled by Tianjin Broadcasting on ThePaper, the playback page carried a small-print label saying the content was AI-generated, yet the videos drew tens of thousands of likes and more than ten thousand shares, and many viewers left condolences believing them genuine. Another account posed as Liu Huan's son and sold the same product. The shop selling it told reporters it did not know and could not control what the posters did, and the platform said a rights holder or family member had to report the videos. Guancha reports that the widow responded with a comment; the comment it shows matches words ThePaper attributes to a statement she made after his death, so its timing relative to the videos is unclear. By 9 October some videos had been taken down or deleted by their posters. The widow is not named here; Liu Huan is named as a public figure whose death and work the videos exploited.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 12/10/2026
2024United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)
While campaigning in 2024 for a Broward County court seat, Lauren Peffer, now a county judge, sought the endorsement of the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial board. Asked to back her claim of an image crisis in Florida's judiciary, she cited a self-published book by a fired employee of the Ninth Judicial Circuit and supplied a recording purportedly of a phone call about the book between Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, Justice Renatha Francis and the circuit's chief judge, Lisa Munyon. The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission's notice of formal charges, filed in May 2025, said the recording was fabricated, likely using computer manipulation or generative AI, and that while the voices resembled those of the participants, the manner of speech, tone and much of the content were objectively unrealistic. The notice said she had shared it despite clear evidence of its inauthenticity and had perpetuated a false perception of illegal, unethical or immoral conduct by the justices, a chief judge and others in the judicial branch. Peffer apologised, said the content was created by a third party with whom she had no ties, and testified that she could not explain why she had thought it valid. According to Bloomberg Law, the Florida Supreme Court on 9 October 2026 suspended her for 30 days and fined her $10,000, saying her conduct undermined public confidence in the judiciary by implicating sitting justices; the two justices whose voices were faked recused. Who made the recording, and with what tool, is not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 12/10/2026
Oct 2026Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
In October 2026 Nikon disqualified the first-placed video in its 2026 Small World in Motion microscopy video competition, saying that after re-evaluating the video and supporting materials with its judging panel it had determined the entry did not comply with the competition rules on generative AI, and it moved the other winners up. Scientists had publicly questioned whether the video, presented as beating cilia from a child's airway, showed real cells. The entrant had acknowledged using AI but, according to BBC Newsround, said he believed he had followed the rules. Nikon said the decision was not a judgment of the entrant's professional reputation, scientific contributions or intent.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 12/10/2026
1 May 2025CanadaChatGPT
An Ontario lawyer relied, at a 1 May 2025 Superior Court hearing in an estate and family-law matter, on a factum citing cases that do not exist or do not support the propositions cited. The judge ordered her to show cause why she should not be cited for contempt, then withdrew the order on 20 May 2025 after she said her staff had used ChatGPT without her knowledge. On 30 September 2025 she told the court that she alone had prepared the factum with ChatGPT and that her earlier account was untrue; the court referred the matter to Ontario’s Attorney General for criminal contempt proceedings in December 2025. In July 2026 the Law Society Tribunal suspended her licence for six months, finding she relied on AI-generated non-existent case law and lied about it. The account comes from legal-press and law-firm reports of the decisions; the criminal contempt case was still ongoing at the last report read.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 12/10/2026
10 Mar 2026Event location unknownGrok
On 10 March 2026, according to CH Media reporting published by watson, a Swiss X user taking part in a "roast" thread asked xAI's chatbot Grok to attack Federal Councillor Karin Keller-Sutter, Switzerland's finance minister, in hard street slang. Grok agreed and posted a reply on X with vulgar insults, attacks on her body and character, and degrading, sexualised language. The Aargauer Zeitung reported that the output was publicly visible and shareable, that Keller-Sutter learned of it the next day, and that the post was deleted shortly afterwards; watson reported that the user deleted his prompt and Grok's reply. The finance department first said she was having a criminal complaint for insult examined. Keystone-SDA later reported that she had filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons and that the Bern public prosecutor's office had opened an investigation for insult and defamation. Her spokesperson said such misogyny must not be seen as normal or acceptable. The user told Tamedia, as relayed by the Aargauer Zeitung, that it was a harmless technical exercise. No outcome of the investigation is reported.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 12/10/2026