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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
245
Countries with reported events
42
Located 190 of 245 cases · 55 unknown
Languages in checked sources
41
Recorded for 245 of 245 cases

11 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 11 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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245 of 1099 published cases · page 4 of 13

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified video tool

Lippe district police say a man lost his savings and took out a loan after investment adverts with AI-generated deepfake videos of supposed TV shows

The Lippe police reported on 20 February 2026 that a man from the district had recently been defrauded through a supposed online trading platform, with a five-figure loss. According to the police, the fraudsters used adverts with AI-generated deepfake videos from supposed television programmes, repeatedly demanded fees after he registered and steered him to transfers to crypto exchanges. He was talked into taking out a loan to make further deposits, never received a payout, lost his savings and got into financial difficulty because of the loan. The police do not say whom the videos showed or how they established that they were AI-generated.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026

2025AustraliaChatGPT

Victorian exam authority says student who used ChatGPT on a smuggled phone during a 2025 VCE exam admitted the breach and had marks reduced

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) said on 19 October 2026, as reported by The Age, that during the 2025 VCE exams a student smuggled a smartphone into an exam, uploaded exam questions to ChatGPT and attempted to pass off the AI-generated answers as their own before an exam supervisor caught them. According to the authority, the student admitted the breaches and had their marks reduced after a review. The student was one of 109 students the VCAA investigated for cheating in the 2025 VCE exams, up from 87 in 2024. The report does not identify the student, the school, the subject or the size of the reduction. The account is the exam authority's, relayed by one outlet.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified image tool

Krefeld police say an older man lost a four-figure sum to a dating-app contact whose photos, by first findings, were AI-generated

Krefeld police reported on 29 April 2026 that unknown fraudsters obtained a four-figure sum from an older man through a dating app. Over several weeks he exchanged messages, first in the app and then on WhatsApp, with a supposed woman presented as a journalist in Lebanon who would soon return to Germany. He became suspicious at a last request for money for medical care after an alleged road accident and coma, and went to the police. According to the police's first findings, the photos of the supposed woman were AI-generated, including one showing her injured in a hospital bed. The money was paid with prepaid voucher codes.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 19/10/2026

2025Event location unknownUnidentified image tool

Brazilian court orders Telegram to pay a woman damages after it ignored her reports of a group sharing AI-made fake intimate images of her

A civil court in Goiânia, Brazil (32ª Vara Cível) ordered Telegram in a judgment signed on 6 October 2026 to pay R$10,000 in moral damages to a woman whose fake intimate images, created with artificial intelligence, were shared on the platform. According to the judgment as reported by Portal 6 (citing the legal news site Rota Jurídica) and O Popular, Telegram users used AI tools to alter photos that she and her sisters had posted on social media into nude and sexual images, and shared them without consent in a group of more than 120 participants with offensive sexual comments. She reported the group to Telegram through its support channels, including a notification on 29 July 2025, and received no reply; the group had 98 participants then and at least 123 a month later. The court held Telegram liable because it did not remove the posts after notification, ordered removal of the material, measures to block identical or similar copies, and disclosure of data identifying the group's creators and users. Telegram did not contest the case and did not answer O Popular.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026

2026ChinaUnidentified video tool

Beijing News: a student says a friend's older relative bought several high-priced orders from an AI-generated 'Xiaohai' persona's shop window

The Beijing News reported on 18 October 2026, in a follow-up to its investigation of 'Xiaohai' accounts on Chinese short-video platforms, that the accounts show AI-generated teenage boys who address older women as 'aunties and mothers' and steer them to high-priced shop windows. A university student told the paper that an older relative of a friend had been watching 'Xiaohai' videos and asked the friend why the boy was so badly off; the friend then found that the relative had already bought several orders of goods at high prices through the persona's shop window. The student made a counter-video with the same AI tools, posted on 28 September, in which the persona admits to deceiving viewers; after the friend showed it to the relative, the relative said they would not buy the persona's goods again. The amount spent and the goods bought are not reported. China National Radio's report the same day also describes the 'Xiaohai' videos as AI-generated and notes that many carry an 'AI-generated' watermark.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 19/10/2026

Jun 2025MalaysiaVeo 3 (reported)

Malaysia: hotel worker says elderly couple travelled from Kuala Lumpur to Perak for a cable car shown in an AI-generated news video

A hotel worker in Perak, Malaysia, said in a Threads post on 30 June 2025 that an elderly couple checking in asked whether she had ridden the cable car at Kuak Hulu, telling her they had travelled from Kuala Lumpur for it. They had seen a nearly three-minute video in which a journalist from a 'TV Rakyat' channel appears to introduce a 'Kuak SkyRide' cable car and interview visitors. The worker says she explained the video was AI-generated; the woman asked why anyone would lie when there was even a reporter in it and said she wanted to sue the journalist, and the couple said they had been too embarrassed to check with their children. The Baling district officer acknowledged that the content was AI-generated, and the acting district police chief said checks found no such cable car and that no report of losses had been received. A Fast Company column says the video carried a Veo3 logo. Who made the video is unknown.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 19/10/2026

Event date unknownPolandUnidentified image and video tool

Silesia, Poland: police say a man used AI-made videos casting a young woman and her mother to stalk and threaten them; he was charged and remanded

City police in the Silesian Voivodeship said on 30 April 2026 that they had detained a 30-year-old man suspected of persistently harassing a young woman and threatening her and her family. According to the police, he sent her several to more than a dozen messages a day over a long period, opened new profiles when she blocked him, came to her home, and used artificial intelligence to create videos casting her and her mother in invented scenarios, as well as photos and videos simulating violence against a family member. He was charged with persistent harassment and criminal threats, and a court remanded him in custody for three months. The police do not name the AI tool or say how they established its use.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified image and video tool

Chennai: police say a man used AI to make obscene images of a woman colleague and posted them from a fake Instagram account tagged with her home location

Police in the Chennai area arrested a man in early May 2026 who, according to their investigation as reported by the Times of India, DT Next and Daily Thanthi, used AI to turn a woman colleague's display pictures into obscene images and videos, posted them from a fake Instagram account in her name, and tagged the posts with her home location. A friend alerted the woman to the account; she complained to an all-women police station, and police traced the posts to a colleague's phone. Daily Thanthi reports that he admitted under questioning to making the images with AI after a workplace dispute. DT Next reports that the account and posts were blocked and that he was remanded in judicial custody. The AI tool is not identified, and the date the posts began is not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 19/10/2026

Jun 2025PolandUnidentified image tool

Central Poland: pupils reportedly used an AI app to make a nude image of a classmate under 15; prosecutors reopened the case after the data regulator intervened

In June 2025, according to OKO.press, a group of pupils at a primary school in central Poland took a classmate's photo from the internet, used an application that offers to "undress" people in uploaded photos to generate a nude image bearing her face, posted it on the school's Instagram profile and urged others to order more such images. Poland's Personal Data Protection Office (UODO) says the girl was under 15 and notified the police, but the police declined to open proceedings and the prosecutor's office upheld that decision, finding no prohibited act; Gazeta Prawna reports that they considered the AI-generated material not pornographic and the pupil unharmed. The UODO president appealed to the Prosecutor General, in January 2026 the authority announced that prosecutors had informed it they were taking up the case again, and in June 2026 it said its president had recently asked once more for the investigation to be resumed. The application is not named.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 19/10/2026

17 Jan 2025 to 4 Nov 2025United StatesGemini and Sora (reported)

Queens prosecutors say a City Council candidate used AI to fake endorsements and news reports, including a video saying his opponent quit

The Queens District Attorney charged a former candidate for New York City Council District 29 with forgery in June 2026, alleging that from January to November 2025 he posted AI-generated images, fake news articles and videos on his campaign's Facebook and Instagram accounts. Prosecutors say subpoena records and search warrants show he prompted an AI platform to face-swap himself into a photo shaking hands with former Council Member Robert Holden for a fake New York Post endorsement story, used Google Gemini to make a fake Amsterdam News article saying his opponent, Council Member Lynn Schulman, was questioned by police, and posted a Sora-generated newscast announcing that she had dropped out. They also allege AI videos of apparent police officers and children endorsing him. In October 2025 Holden's chief of staff told the Queens Daily Eagle the handshake image was fake and AI-generated, and Schulman said her opponent was lying about her and creating fake news. The accused said his accounts were hacked and later told the AP he would not confirm or deny making the posts.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 19/10/2026

May 2026ChinaUnidentified video tool

A 79-year-old set off alone by train to visit an AI-generated 'Xiaohai' persona until railway police intervened, Beijing News and state radio report

The Beijing News reported on 16 October 2026, in an investigation of 'Xiaohai' accounts on Chinese short-video platforms, that the accounts show an AI-generated digital teenager who calls older women viewers 'aunties and mothers', tells stories of hardship and asks them to buy goods through sales links; its reporter generated such a video by following a tutorial, in a little over ten minutes. The paper describes a 79-year-old woman, given a pseudonym, who lived alone and talked most with the 'Xiaohai' on her phone. Around May 2026, according to the paper, a 'Xiaohai' video invited viewers to Yuncheng in Shanxi to see apricot blossoms; she secretly packed, bought a train ticket and set off with no clear route. On the train, railway police noticed her, told her that 'Xiaohai' was not a real person, and contacted her children, who bought her return ticket and brought her home. At first she refused to believe it. The paper also found that most 'Xiaohai' videos now carry a declaration that the content is AI-generated. How the paper learned of her journey is not stated. China National Radio (China Media Group) reported the same journey on 19 October 2026 with recorded exchanges between the woman and a train police officer: in May 2026 Urumqi railway police found a 79-year-old who cannot read travelling alone, able to say only that she was going to Yuncheng in Shanxi to see a child who called her 'auntie' every day on her phone; the officer told her the person in the live room was fake, and she got off and went home on a return ticket her family bought. The station's reporter found that the persona she trusted was one of the batch-produced 'digital human Xiaohai' accounts and that many carry an 'AI-generated' watermark in a corner of the video.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/10/2026

26 Mar 2026 to 19 Aug 2026AustraliaUnidentified AI drafting tool

Fair Work Commission orders former Aldi worker to pay A$1,230 costs after his AI-drafted unfair dismissal claim kept arguing the wrong date

On 19 August 2026 a Deputy President of Australia's Fair Work Commission ordered a self-represented former Aldi store worker to pay A$1,230 towards Aldi's legal costs. The decision records that his unfair dismissal application, lodged on the evening he was told of his dismissal on 26 March 2026, was obviously prepared using AI and still contained AI drafting notes, and that every email and document he filed was drafted using AI. He was notified of his dismissal three days short of the six-month minimum employment period. According to the decision, his AI-generated materials kept arguing about a different, irrelevant date (when the dismissal took effect), including after the Commission explained the correct test to him twice by email on 31 July 2026. He discontinued at the hearing on 5 August 2026. The Deputy President found that continuing after those warnings was unreasonable and said it was quite possible he had adopted AI as his quasi-legal adviser, while stating that using AI to draft submissions is not of itself unreasonable and that the responsibility was his. The decision notes that an appeal was lodged against it.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/10/2026

Dec 2025United StatesUnidentified video tool (suspected)

Pennsylvania police charge a student with harassment after reported AI videos of freshman girls; district says an app animated their photos

In December 2025 a high school in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, told families about an AI-generated video reported to depict several students inappropriately. Parents told the Philadelphia Inquirer that five freshman girls were told by boys that a male classmate had made sexual videos of them; the girls never saw the videos. The parents say police told them the classmate acknowledged making videos of the girls dancing in thong bikinis with an app later deleted from his phone. A January 2026 district message, which the district says was co-written by the police, said a student used an app that animates publicly available photos to make them appear to move and dance, and that no evidence of anything inappropriate was found. The township police said they had investigated the possible use of AI to generate non-consensual sexualized imagery of multiple juveniles and charged a juvenile with harassment. One mother said everyone stared at her daughter at school and that she felt no one believed her. The app is unnamed and the videos were not recovered.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources · Added 18/10/2026

Feb 2025GermanyUnidentified image tool

Hannover region: a pupil told a tipster he made AI nude images of female classmates and sent them on Telegram; police confirm the case, FAZ reports

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on 15 October 2026 that a tipster who monitors abuse of women streamers had traced a schoolboy at a school near Hannover, Germany, who distributed AI-generated nude images of female classmates. According to the tipster, on 20 February 2025 a Telegram user wrote to him privately, said he had made nude images of classmates with artificial intelligence and sent him images unasked. The tipster says the images were made from the girls' Snapchat and Instagram photos and from photos taken of them in the classroom, and showed them nude and in sexual positions. He identified two of the depicted girls online, worked out the boy's school and class, and phoned the headteacher, who confirmed his call to the newspaper. The Hannover police confirmed the facts, said the person identified is a child below the age of criminal responsibility, and said officers held a warning talk with him and explained the possible consequences of his use of digital media. The headteacher says the pupil no longer attends the school and that, on police advice, the girls were not told. The school is not named.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026

10 Oct 2026 to 15 Oct 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool

Swedish fact-checkers say a clickbait network spread false posts with AI-generated images claiming MP Mohamed Ali confessed to election fraud and was arrested

Between 10 and 15 October 2026 a Swedish-language Facebook page published twelve posts about Mohamed Abdukardir Ali, a Left Party (V) member of the Riksdag, including claims that he had confessed to election fraud and that police had detained him in the middle of a press conference. The fact-checking site Källkritikbyrån reported on 16 October that the claims are false and the images AI-generated, and linked the page through a shared administrator account to BeeUp, a Vietnamese firm that presents itself as a viral marketing agency. SVT Verifierar reported on 17 October that the images claim he confesses to election fraud and has been arrested, and that comment after comment on Facebook reacted with demands such as 'Utvisa honom!' (deport him). The posts built on real reports of suspected election irregularities connected with his personal-vote campaign in Borlänge, which he denies. No source names the image tool, describes how the images were identified as AI-generated, or reports his response to the fabricated posts.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/10/2026

Aug 2025Event location unknownUnidentified video tool

Full Fact finds AI deepfakes of UK public-health academics made to promote menopause supplements on TikTok; depicted professors object

In a December 2025 investigation, the fact-checker Full Fact reported that social media accounts were using AI-generated deepfakes of real doctors and academics, made from real footage, to promote supplements, with many links to the US company Wellness Nest. Professor David Taylor-Robinson of the University of Liverpool learned on 11 August 2025 that TikTok carried footage of his real conference talk altered so that a fake version of him discussed a supposed menopause symptom and recommended a Wellness Nest probiotic; The Guardian reported 14 such videos. TikTok at first found no violation, and removed the account after Full Fact contacted it on 24 September, calling the delay a moderating error. He said he became more and more irritated, that removal was a faff and that people who know him could have been taken in. Full Fact also found eight videos of Duncan Selbie, former head of Public Health England, who called them a complete fake. Wellness Nest denied running the accounts or using AI-generated content. The tool used is not identified.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 18/10/2026

7 Feb 2026ThailandUnidentified Google image tool (reported)

Thailand: AFP finds an AI-generated image of Prime Minister Anutin dining with a South African businessman spread on election eve; Anutin denied it

AFP Fact Check reported on 9 February 2026 that an image showing Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul at a dinner table with South African businessman Benjamin Mauerberger and three women spread in a 7 February Facebook post, and in other Facebook and TikTok posts, on the eve of Thailand's 8 February general election, with captions suggesting the two men had long been in contact. A newsletter has accused Mauerberger of laundering money for scam networks, which he denies, and genuine photos of the two men leaked in December 2025 had already drawn questions from opposition lawmakers. AFP found visual irregularities and ran the image through Google's SynthID detector, which indicated with very high confidence that it was made with Google's AI tools. Anutin publicly denied the photo's authenticity on 7 February, saying it was an AI photo. Who made the image is not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026

Jul 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool

Woman says a classmate sent an AI-undressed image of her to his contacts; he says his account was hacked, and police refused a case pending an examination

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

Event date unknownUnited StatesArtSpace.ai (reported)

Indianapolis: court documents say a photographer used ArtSpace.ai to remove clothing from photos of children; FOX59 reports at least 47 children, 50 counts

According to court documents reported by FOX59, an Indianapolis photographer uploaded photos he had taken, and images found on social media, to the AI image platform ArtSpace.ai and typed prompts asking it to remove the clothing of the people shown while leaving the rest of each photo unchanged. Police traced a May cyber tip that flagged 1,631 suspected child sexual abuse files on the platform to his IP address. Investigators say the photos he uploaded showed at least 47 children, some as young as four or five, and that he told police he knew several of the victims. After a forensic review found more AI-generated files and further juvenile victims, he faces 48 counts of child exploitation and two of possession of child sex abuse material. The charges are untried; a jury trial is scheduled for November 2026.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026

9 Oct 2026 to 13 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified video tool

Brazilian builder travelled over 2,000 km to Belo Horizonte to meet a social-media woman who did not exist; the account's operator says the persona is AI-made

In October 2026 a 49-year-old builder travelled more than 2,000 km by bus from Imperatriz, in Maranhão, to Belo Horizonte to meet a woman he knew from a social-media account with about 300,000 followers. In the account's videos a woman with a realistic voice and appearance said she was looking for a man to live with her on a farm. He told G1 he began interacting with the profile after its videos appeared in his feeds, that it kept private conversations with him and offered to pay his fare, and that he travelled without an address. In Belo Horizonte he showed her photos to people and found that nobody knew her; he said he felt deceived. The city's social assistance service gave him food, a bath and a ticket home. A day later the account's administrator posted a video in which the persona says it is made of artificial intelligence, that it never conversed with anyone on the profile and that the aim was engagement for sales; the creator told the press he set up the account in 2025 to attract buyers. Who wrote the private messages the man describes is not established. Minas Gerais civil police said they had no report of the case and could not say a crime had occurred.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

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.