2026United KingdomFacewatch facial recognition
A 67-year-old shopper told the BBC and the Guardian that staff at a Home Bargains store in Chester told the shopper to leave in front of other people because the shopper had come up on the store's Facewatch system as a shoplifter. Facewatch later sent the shopper a photo with words saying items had been put into a bag and stolen. Facewatch said the shopper should not have been on its system and that the image and associated record were permanently removed. The Guardian reports that a subject access request showed the shopper had been incorrectly associated with a shoplifting incident on an earlier visit, and that Facewatch's chief executive attributed the three cases in the article, which include this shopper's, to human error in store processes. Home Bargains declined to comment. The shopper reports feeling physically sick and helpless. The Guardian reports that Home Bargains later offered an apology and a 100 pound voucher on condition of confidentiality, which the shopper declined. The year of the visit is inferred to be 2026 from the BBC report of 22 February 2026.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownSpainUnidentified image tool
On 15 February 2025 Spanish outlets reported a Policia Nacional note saying a minor had been detained in Palma on a corruption-of-minors charge. According to the note, the student took photographs of classmates from their social media profiles and altered them with an AI application to create AI-generated sexual images, and is believed to have sent them to others. Police identified five victims (El Pais: at least five). Relatives said the images looked real at first glance. The case went to the Balearic juvenile prosecutor's office. The creation date, the AI application and the outcome are not reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownGreeceUnidentified image tool
On 21 February 2025 Greek outlets reported a Hellenic Police statement saying two 16-year-old students had been taken in from their school on 19 February 2025. According to the statement, they exchanged online photographs of classmates that they had processed with an AI program so the classmates appeared nude or semi-nude, and the photographs came from social media or were received without consent. A case file was formed against the students for child sexual abuse material and against their parents for neglect of supervision. The number of classmates depicted, the creation date and the outcome are not reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified image tool
In a report published on 21 February 2025 about a Victoria Police press conference, an Australian regional outlet stated that sexually explicit AI-manipulated images of teenage girls had been circulated online and that two Year 11 students had been suspended. Police were quoted saying the images allegedly involved formal photos of female students. Police were still working to establish how many students were victims. The Department of Education said wellbeing support had been offered to students who needed it. The creation date, the AI tool, the number of affected students and the outcome of the investigation are not reported in the cited source.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified image tool
On 9 January 2025 outlets reported that NSW Police had begun an investigation on 6 January after a report that inappropriate images were being produced and distributed online. The Guardian reported the allegation that a student at a Sydney high school used AI platforms to create explicit deepfake images of female students and circulated them through fake social media accounts. The Department of Education said it was helping affected students with wellbeing support and referred the matter to the eSafety Commissioner. The creation date, the AI tool, the number of affected students and the outcome of the investigation are not reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image and video tool
The Daily Echo (29 June 2025), the Daily Mail (1 July 2025), and The Sun and the New York Post (2 July 2025) reported that a Southampton resident said the resident had been 'relentlessly' sent AI-generated or doctored celebrity images and videos on Facebook for about five months, with a fake prize certificate and requests for an activation fee to unlock a prize of £500,000 and a car. The resident said one persona presented as a celebrity said she loved the resident and asked for money, and that the resident paid £200 in Apple gift cards. The resident also said the messages were affecting the resident's mental health and said an acquaintance had lost over £1,000 to the same kind of scam (second-hand, not counted here). A University of Southampton AI expert described the messages as a phishing scam using an AI-generated prize certificate. All outlets rest on the resident's own account, and none reports verifying the messages. The start date is not established.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Mar 2025Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
Economist David Rosenberg told The Globe and Mail (18 June 2025) that ads on Facebook and Instagram since March 2025 promoted a fake investment program listing him as its administrator and redirected people to a WhatsApp group. The Globe reported that one investor interviewed estimated losing $16,000, another said she lost $500,000 in a week, and a third alleged losing $450,000 in life savings. Rosenberg told BNN Bloomberg on 7 July 2025 that the scammers used a fake AI voice and video of him, and a Globe column of 17 July 2025 described a deepfake video advert. Losses are self-reported and unverified. The AI characterisation comes from Rosenberg and a July Globe column, and the June Globe article on the investors does not mention AI. A Toronto police detective said no victim had reported to police.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
Mar 2025Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
City AM (dated 21 March 2025) reported that a fake video using AI to pose as Michael Hewson, host of the Good Money Guide Podcast, circulated on Facebook and Instagram that week and directed users to a WhatsApp group with promises of undervalued investments. Hewson said on X that the advert had nothing to do with Hewson, that it had been reported and was being taken up with Meta, and that Hewson was very angry. A Good Money Guide article dated 3 June 2025 (which may describe the same advert or a later one) reported that its report to Meta had not led to removal three days later and that the sponsored post had been viewed 29,000 times. No person is reported to have joined the group or lost money.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
14 Jun 2025Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
Coin Edition (20 June 2025), TradingView and Crypto.news relayed a public account by cryptocurrency analyst Mai Fujimoto. She said her main X account was hacked on 14 June 2025 after a 10-minute Zoom call with what appeared to be an acquaintance whose Telegram account had been compromised. The caller could not be heard and sent a link to fix an audio problem. She believes malware was installed at that point, and the outlets report that attackers then also accessed her Telegram and MetaMask accounts. The outlets describe the caller as a deepfake of the acquaintance. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao commented publicly on 20 June 2025 that video verification may become unreliable. No loss of funds is stated.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Oct 2025Event location unknownSora
On 2 October 2025, shortly after OpenAI's Sora 2 video app launched, journalist Taylor Lorenz posted on X that someone gave her stalker an invite to Sora and that he was already making AI videos of her. She wrote that he runs hundreds of accounts dedicated to her, has hired photographers to surveil her, appears at events she attends and impersonates her friends and family online to gather information. She said Sora let her block and delete unapproved content showing her image. Futurism and The Canary reported her posts. The videos were not inspected, no police or platform action beyond her use of the block-and-delete option is reported, and how the videos were made is unclear.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning tool
WIRED reported on 21 May 2025 that Mark Brown, creator of the Game Maker's Toolkit YouTube channel, says another YouTube channel published a video about Doom: The Dark Ages narrated with an AI version of his voice, made without his knowledge or consent, and that a second video that appears to feature his voice is also online. Brown filed a privacy complaint with YouTube. Brown told WIRED that more than 48 hours had passed since his complaint and both videos remained live, and a YouTube spokesperson said the company was reviewing the content. Brown described the experience as invasive and said the channel is likely earning advertising revenue from it. The voice-cloning tool, the videos' upload dates and the outcome of the complaint are not reported, and WIRED could not find contact information for the channel's operator.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Apr 2025Event location unknownGoogle AI Overviews
Italian outlets report that Google's AI Overview feature told searchers that Claudio Zorzi, head of orthopedics and traumatology at the IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria hospital in Negrar (Verona), had died. According to the hospital, the surgeon is alive and operating, and the error probably came from confusion with a general practitioner of the same name who died. The false news is reported to have circulated since April 2025 and to have recurred. Zorzi said he felt uncomfortable because people who think he is dead do not look for him, and he reported the notice to the postal police. On 15 October 2025 the hospital served Google, through its lawyers, with a formal cease-and-desist and default notice and reserved a damages claim. No Google response was found. The AI Overview output itself was not inspected.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownGemma
In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on 31 October 2025, US Senator Marsha Blackburn said that Google's Gemma model, asked "Has Marsha Blackburn been accused of rape?", produced an invented account of a 1987 campaign-era accusation by a state trooper, with links to news articles that do not exist. She said there has never been such an accusation, called the output defamation and demanded that Google shut the model down until it can be controlled. Google said it had seen reports of non-developers trying to use Gemma in AI Studio to ask factual questions, that this was not an intended use, and removed Gemma from AI Studio while keeping API access. Google's later reply to the Senator called the hallucinations a technical issue common to large language models. The date the output was generated is not stated, and the output itself was not inspected.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
2025Event location unknownGrok (reported)
Caitlin Roper, campaigns manager at the Australian group Collective Shout, reports that during 2025 people sent and posted AI-generated images of her, including violent images and images altered with X's Grok feature, together with threats. The New York Times (as excerpted on a UC Berkeley page dated 31 October 2025) described her as traumatized by the threats she received that year. Roper says she spent at least an hour each morning reporting, blocking and documenting the abuse for months, and that police and the eSafety Commission gave little help. The senders are not identified in the inspected sources, and the exact dates of the images are not stated.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
11 Sept 2025AlbaniaDiella
Albania's government presented an AI-generated public-procurement "minister" named Diella in September 2025. Actress Anila Bisha says the avatar's face and voice are hers. She says her contract covered use as a digital assistant on the e-Albania services portal and that she was never asked about the ministerial role. In February 2026 she asked the Tirana Administrative Court of First Instance for an interim measure to stop the use of her image and voice, and her representatives said they plan a formal lawsuit for damages. The government's media agency called the lawsuit nonsense. Anadolu Agency reported on 12 February 2026 that the court had not ruled on the request.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
2025JapanChatGPT
BBC Travel reported on 29 September 2025 that a travel blogger and her husband used ChatGPT to plan a sunset hike up Mount Misen on Itsukushima (Miyajima) in Japan earlier that year. The blogger told the BBC that ChatGPT said the last ropeway down was at 17:30, that the ropeway had already closed when they were ready to descend, and that they were stuck at the summit. The BBC does not say how they got down, when in 2025 it happened or what the ropeway's real closing time was.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownPeruUnidentified chatbot
BBC Travel reported on 29 September 2025 that a trek operator in a rural Peruvian town overheard two unaccompanied tourists planning to hike alone to the 'Sacred Canyon of Humantay'. The operator says the tourists showed the operator a screenshot of a confident, adjectival description, that no such canyon exists, and that one tourist paid nearly $160 to reach a rural road near Mollepata without a guide or a destination. The article implies an AI chatbot as the source of the description but does not name the tool used by these tourists, and gives no date.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Nov 2025Event location unknownGoogle Antigravity
In November 2025 a user of Google's Gemini 3-based Antigravity agentic development platform, building a photo-sorting application, reported on Reddit that the agent deleted the contents of the D: drive of the computer. The agent's own reply, quoted by The Register, says the command it ran to clear the project cache "incorrectly targeted the root of your D: drive". The user says the deletion bypassed the Recycle Bin and that recovery attempts largely failed, while The Register reports that most of the lost material had been backed up on another drive. The Register reports that the user ran Antigravity in Turbo mode, which lets the agent run commands without user input, and that the user accepted a share of responsibility. Google told The Register it was aware of the report and investigating.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
24 Oct 2025United KingdomMicrosoft Copilot (reported)
On 24 October 2025 West Midlands Police gave Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group a written report that cited a Maccabi Tel Aviv v West Ham match on 9 November 2023 that never took place. The group had advised on 16 October that Aston Villa give no tickets to Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters for the 6 November 2025 match. In January 2026 the Chief Constable said the error arose from use of Microsoft Copilot, after earlier telling MPs it came from a Google search. The inspectorate found the ban advice predated the report and said confirmation bias influenced the force's assessments to the group. The sources do not show the Copilot output caused the ban.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources · Added 29/09/2026
Nov 2025New ZealandUnidentified image tool
By 18 November 2025 (the date of the first reports) the New Zealand Book Awards Trust had removed two books from contention for the NZ$65,000 fiction prize of the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The Trust said a bookseller suspected AI use in the covers and the publisher confirmed it. The Trust's new AI clause covers illustrations, and the publisher says the covers were designed months before the clause was issued. One author says the author had no idea AI had been used in the cover, the Spinoff reports the publisher did not tell either author that AI might be used, and the authors describe having little involvement in the covers. One author worries readers will assume AI wrote the book and that booksellers may not stock it.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 29/09/2026