2 Oct 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
On 2 October 2026 the Nebraska Supreme Court struck the appellate brief of a self-represented party appealing a contempt order in his divorce case because the brief contained numerous citations to fictitious cases and misstatements of law, which the court said were the result of his admitted use of generative artificial intelligence. The court held that self-represented litigants are held to the same standard as attorneys and that submitting a brief relying on nonexistent authority is an abuse of the judicial process worthy of sanctions. Citing the novelty of the issue for self-represented parties, it stopped short of dismissing the appeal and reviewed only for plain error, finding none and affirming the district court's contempt finding, its sanction of 90 days' incarceration with purge conditions, a temporary reduction of his parenting time and an attorney-fee award. The court warned that in future cases dismissal of the appeal may follow. The opinion does not name the AI tool.
Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 1 source · Added 09/10/2026
17 Sept 2025 to 21 Sept 2026United KingdomChatGPT
A published Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) decision issued on 21 September 2026 records that the grounds of appeal and skeleton argument in a Namibian national's protection appeal were produced by a paralegal at her then solicitors using ChatGPT. The tribunal recorded her counsel's acceptance that the grounds cited fake cases, quoted passages absent from those judgments and attributed to the First-tier judge sentences he never wrote, and itself called one purported quotation pure invention. The September 2025 error-of-law hearing was adjourned, and the appellant later withdrew three of her four original grounds. The tribunal allowed an amended version of her one surviving ground but found that it disclosed no error of law. It refused her permission to add two new grounds, holding that she should not be allowed to advance entirely new grounds, or replace grounds riddled with misrepresentations, so long after the time limit, and in the alternative found those grounds without merit. It directed the Home Office to file any wasted costs application against the firm. The decision states that two individuals have reported themselves to the Solicitors Regulation Authority; the Law Society Gazette reported the decision on 8 October 2026.
Core + contextual relations Low reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 09/10/2026
Dec 2024 to Sept 2026AustraliaUnidentified AI writing tool
In December 2024 the Parole Board of Tasmania added a condition to the parole of Susan Neill-Fraser, released in 2022 after serving 13 years for murder and who maintains her innocence, barring her from communicating with media to claim innocence or wrongful conviction; a broader condition replaced it in May 2025. On 15 September 2026 the Supreme Court of Tasmania declared the conditions invalid. Her counsel told the court that the board's secretary had used artificial intelligence to prepare a rationale document justifying the condition and that it cited case law that did not exist. The Human Rights Law Centre, which represented her, says the State conceded that the board's decision-making was affected by a document containing legal authorities that were likely AI-generated hallucinations, and the ABC reports the court found the board relied on that document. The board had withdrawn the condition in August 2026. Tasmania's Attorney-General announced an independent investigation of the board's professional standards over its use of unverified AI, and the Justice Department announced a review of AI use in past parole decisions.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 06/10/2026
26 Sept 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
WEKU, WKYT and LEX 18 reported that Lexington police surrounded a couple's home in the early hours of 26 September 2026 while investigating a reported assault in a road-rage incident. The victim had described a dark pickup truck and gave no license plate. The Lexington Police Department said officers searched its Flock camera network using the description, that only one return matched at that time of day, and that this led to the response to the residence. Doorbell video showed several police cars, spotlights and an officer with a gun unholstered at the door. Officers told the couple they were not suspects and left after about ten minutes. Police said they determined the truck was not the suspect vehicle, placed no charges and described the visit as following up a lead, not a misidentification. The residents said the response frightened them and a 94-year-old relative inside the home.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 05/10/2026
2 Aug 2020United StatesUnidentified license plate reader
On 2 August 2020 Aurora police officers stopped an SUV they believed to be stolen, ordered the woman driving it and four children to lie on the ground at gunpoint, and handcuffed two of the children. The Denver Post reported that a license plate reader at an Aurora intersection had alerted police because the SUV had the same plate number as a stolen motorcycle from Montana, and that officers did not check the reading or the vehicle description. Prosecutors declined to charge the officers in January 2021 and called what happened unacceptable and preventable. The department said all officers were repeating training on license plate scanners. Sentinel Colorado reported that the department's system had flagged the SUV, which carried Colorado plates, and that the City of Aurora agreed in February 2024 to a $1.9 million settlement with the woman and the children to resolve a lawsuit over the officers' actions. One officer was suspended for 160 hours. The woman said the stop destroyed her mentally and that one of the children became withdrawn.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 05/10/2026
Jun 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
An automotive journalist for The Drive wrote that on a Sunday afternoon in late June four Plymouth police cars boxed in the Range Rover press vehicle the journalist was testing, in a Kohl's parking lot. Officers ordered the journalist and the journalist's wife out, patted the journalist down, questioned both and said the plates were stolen. According to the account, officers said they had tracked the vehicle for days through Flock license-plate cameras and acted on a camera alert that morning. The couple were released after about an hour, once the manufacturer explained that a similar plate had been reported stolen in California. In a follow-up, Flock's chief communications officer said the stolen plate had been entered without its two middle digits and that the system matched what it was asked to find. The spokesperson said an alert does not equal probable cause. The police chief acknowledged that officers did not get it right. A second journalist with a similar plate was later stopped in Nebraska.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 05/10/2026
Feb 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
KATV reported on 18 March 2026 that in February a Flock license-plate-reader camera in Sherwood, Arkansas flagged a black Chevrolet Tahoe as stolen. An officer stopped the car in a Kohl's parking lot, drew his weapon and detained the driver; a second officer arrived and the passenger, who was in the back seat next to a one-month-old child, was also detained. According to the incident report, the plate the camera matched belonged to the stolen vehicle in its system and the stopped car was a different vehicle: the camera's read was off by one letter. The officers released both people once they realized the mistake. After the incident the Sherwood Police Department set up a Flock transparency portal.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 04/10/2026
Jun 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
In June 2025 Morristown, Tennessee, police stopped a couple driving their 3-year-old granddaughter to a doctor's appointment, held them at gunpoint and handcuffed them both. The grandmother's personalized plate spelled a nickname with the letter O; a Ford F-150 reported stolen in Claiborne County carried the same word spelled with a zero. Business Insider reported in March 2026 that officers received a Flock alert that the plate was stolen, that the Flock investigative summary recorded the couple's plate with a zero, and that the stolen pickup had already been recovered but was never removed from the system. The police department told WATE that the officer ran the tag as displayed, with an O, and that with either character it showed as stolen in the crime information database; the police chief told Business Insider that officers relied on the National Crime Information Center as protocol requires. The grandfather told WATE that he thought he might be shot and felt humiliated, and the grandmother said she was crying as she heard her granddaughter calling for her.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026
16 Apr 2021United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers (reported)
At about 5:30 a.m. on 16 April 2021, according to a lawsuit reported by The Almanac, an automated license-plate reader in Atherton, California, misread the dirt-obscured plate of a driver's car, reading its letter H as M, and matched it to a reported stolen vehicle. Atherton police followed the car for several minutes without visually verifying the plate, then made a high-risk felony stop, ordering him at gunpoint to throw his keys out of the window, get out and lie on his stomach to be handcuffed. He sued three officers in 2022 for unreasonable seizure and excessive force; the officers denied the allegations and the injuries he claimed, and the case was settled on 16 March 2023 for $45,000. Business Insider, citing police records, reported in March 2026 that the misread came from a Flock camera and that officers noted the Flock cameras had misread the plate; an Atherton police commander said the plate was obstructed by dirt and that the town denies wrongdoing.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
KAKE News reported on 30 January 2024 that a Kansas couple whose minivan carries a four-digit University of Kansas alumni specialty plate were pulled over twice after Flock cameras flagged their plate number as belonging to a stolen vehicle. A stolen GMC pickup had a temporary tag with the same number, and the stolen-vehicle entry recorded the wrong plate type. In Colwich, Kansas, police stopped the wife after an alert from a Flock camera at the edge of town; the officer knew her vehicle and the problem was quickly found. About a month later, according to the husband, another Flock camera alerted police in Catoosa, Oklahoma, where officers blocked the couple's van in a parking lot, pointed drawn guns at them, ordered the husband out and onto his knees and handcuffed him. He said he was scared, and the couple say they worry such a stop could have devastating consequences for someone. Wichita police told KAKE that Flock cameras report only the plate's numbers and letters, not its type, and that the department had spoken with Flock about training its AI to recognize plate backgrounds.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 04/10/2026
23 Jul 2023United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
On 23 July 2023 Española police officers pulled over a car driven by a 21-year-old woman with her 12-year-old sister as a passenger, after a Flock Safety camera at an intersection flagged the car's plate as belonging to a vehicle stolen in Rio Rancho. According to the sisters' lawsuits, reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican in January 2024, the camera had read a 2 on the plate as a 7, and officers handcuffed both sisters and placed them in the backs of separate police vehicles before discovering the error; the older sister had asked an officer to call their mother, who lived nearby, to collect the girl. The suits sought damages for anxiety, fear, worry and restriction of movement. Business Insider, which reviewed the body-camera footage and incident report, reported in March 2026 that officers said the number was obscured by a license plate cover although it is visible in the footage, and that the family settled with the city in 2025.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026
11 Apr 2024United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
On 11 April 2024 Toledo police officers stopped a pickup truck after a Flock license-plate camera alerted them to a stolen plate. According to the police report and body-camera footage reported by 13abc and ABC News, the camera had misread the plate, which was not stolen. Officers drew their guns, ordered the driver out and to the ground, and a K-9 handler released a police dog as he began to kneel. The driver told ABC News he was bitten seven times on his forearm and elbow, was traumatized and could not work; he was arrested and charged with obstruction, resisting arrest and, later, failure to comply. Prosecutors dropped all charges in August 2024. The department found the dog deployment within policy and reprimanded the officer who made the stop for failing to visually verify the plate against the reader's information. Business Insider reported in March 2026 that police records show the camera read a 7 on the plate as a 2, that the man lost feeling in his fingers, gave up his lawn-care business and forklift work, sold his truck and was evicted, and that he had sued the officer and the city and settled in October for $35,000.
Contextual tracker case High reported severity Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 04/10/2026
17 Sept 2023United StatesUnidentified facial recognition system
Jason Killinger, a UPS truck driver, alleges in a federal civil-rights complaint filed in July 2025 that on 17 September 2023 the Peppermill Casino in Reno reported to police that its AI facial recognition software had identified him as a man barred from the casino months earlier. According to the complaint, casino security handcuffed him, and the responding Reno police officer, told the system had found a 100 percent match, did not examine his other identification and took him to jail as an unidentified person, where fingerprints confirmed who he was. The complaint says he was handcuffed for about four hours, starting in the casino security office, spent about eleven hours in police and jail custody, and was treated the next day for bruised wrists. According to the complaint, he was then charged with trespassing, and a prosecutor dismissed the charge without prejudice at the bench trial. Casino.org reports that he settled a suit against the casino. In March 2026 the court let him add the City of Reno and a municipal liability claim over facial recognition policies, but refused a new wrongful arrest claim against the officer on qualified immunity grounds. In September 2026 the ACLU, the ACLU of Nevada and the Innocence Project filed a proposed amicus brief supporting him. His September 2026 motion for partial summary judgment says a Reno police detective later concluded that the match was wrong and that he and the barred man were different people, and it cites a declaration by a former casino security officer, who worked there from about October 2024, that the system often alerted at 100 percent on the wrong people; in a declaration reported by Casino.org, the officer said he had never known the system to misidentify anyone. The case is ongoing.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 9 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 04/10/2026
26 Sept 2026 to 27 Sept 2026United StatesClaude (reported)
According to a Lee County Sheriff's Office arrest report, as reported by WINK News and by Guessing Headlights (on Yahoo News, citing a copy obtained by Gulf Coast News Now), a user of Anthropic's AI platform wrote on 26 September 2026 that she was going to 'shoot up' the Lee County Sheriff's Office, and the next day wrote that she had a new gun. The arrest report says the platform's safety measures flagged the messages, a human review team examined them and reported them to law enforcement. Deputies went to the 30-year-old woman's Bonita Springs home and detained her without incident; she is charged with making a written threat of violence under Florida law. The sheriff told WINK News that she later said she uses AI like a 'diary'. Anthropic had not commented on the case in either report. The charge is an allegation and the case is pending.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/10/2026
May 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool
At a sentencing hearing in May 2025 in Maricopa County Superior Court, Arizona, the family of a man killed in a 2021 road-rage shooting in Chandler played a video that combined real footage with an AI-generated likeness and voice of the victim delivering a script written by his sister, including statements of forgiveness addressed to the defendant. The judge said he loved the video, described it as genuine and referred to the forgiveness it expressed, then imposed the presumptive 10.5-year term for manslaughter, longer than the nine years the prosecutor had requested. The defense attorney appealed immediately. On 30 September 2026 the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the conviction but vacated the sentence, holding that the AI video was not reliable and that the judge's consideration of it so prejudiced the defendant that the sentencing procedure was fundamentally unfair. The opinion says the record does not show precisely how the video factored into the sentence, and that there is no question it played a role. The case returns to the trial court for resentencing; as of 1 October 2026 no new sentencing date had been set.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 6 underlying accounts · Added 02/10/2026
15 Sept 2026IndiaUnidentified traffic-violation detection camera
On 15 September 2026 a man was riding his wife's electric scooter alone in Bengaluru, from Hebbal towards Tin Factory, wearing a helmet and carrying a guitar on his back. An AI-enabled Bengaluru Traffic Police camera on the Outer Ring Road photographed him, and the next day an e-challan of ₹500 was generated for a pillion rider not wearing protective headgear; the photograph attached to it showed no passenger, only the guitar bag. The rider posted the challan on X and asked the traffic police to revoke it. A senior traffic police officer told Deccan Herald that the bag's position apparently led the AI-based system to classify it as a person sitting behind the rider, after which the system appears to have detected a helmet violation and generated the challan. Bengaluru Traffic Police replied that the violation could be rectified and gave an email address and phone numbers, and the joint commissioner of police (traffic) told the Times of India that the violation would be revoked if the complaint was found true. Whether it was revoked is not reported.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 02/10/2026
8 Jan 2026United KingdomUnidentified facial recognition system
The Guardian, in a joint report with Liberty Investigates, reported on 25 February 2026 that Alvi Choudhury, a 26-year-old software engineer, was arrested at his home in Southampton in January 2026 on suspicion of a £3,000 burglary in Milton Keynes, about 100 miles away, and held in custody for nearly 10 hours. Thames Valley Police had used automated retrospective facial recognition software, which matched him with CCTV footage of the burglary suspect. Choudhury says the man in the footage looked about 10 years younger and had different features. Thames Valley Police wrote to him that the arrest may have been the result of bias within facial recognition technology, and told the Guardian that the decision rested on the investigating officers’ own visual assessment and was not influenced by racial profiling. Choudhury is claiming damages from Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · 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
Dec 2025CanadaGoogle AI Overviews
In December 2025 Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac said a First Nation north of Halifax cancelled his concert planned for 19 December after reading a Google AI-generated search summary that said he had convictions for sexual offences. He says the statements were false and came from online articles about another man in Atlantic Canada with the same last name. The First Nation apologised in writing and Google amended the search results. MacIsaac says he feared for his safety and worries about other lost work. In a statement of claim filed in February 2026 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice he seeks damages of 1.5 million from Google (US dollars in the Globe and Mail copy of the Canadian Press story, no currency stated in the CBC copy). None of its claims was tested in court. CBC News reported in August 2026 that a notice of discontinuance ending the lawsuit was filed on 29 July 2026; MacIsaac gave no reason, Google did not comment, and no settlement is reported.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
12 Sept 2025United StatesGaggle school monitoring
According to a Volusia County Sheriff's Office account carried by local outlets, a 15-year-old high school student in Deltona, Florida was arrested on 12 September 2025 after typing a written threat to bring a gun to school on a school-issued laptop. The Gaggle student-monitoring software raised an alert that notified the school resource deputy, who detained the student before the student boarded the bus home. The student was arrested on a second-degree felony charge (one outlet says the charge was still to be filed). The student reportedly admitted typing the text, said it was not meant seriously and said the motive was anger about being picked on. Outcome of the charge and the exact Gaggle role in generating this alert are not reported.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026