21 Oct 2025 to 3 Apr 2026United StatesCoCounsel
In a published opinion of 3 April 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit addressed the briefs a lawyer appointed under the Criminal Justice Act had filed for an indigent defendant appealing a sentencing enhancement in a drug-trafficking case. The court noticed that the principal brief's file name was 'CoCounsel Skill Results' and found three quotations that appear in no legal authority and misstatements of two precedents. The lawyer admitted that a staff member had used Westlaw's CoCounsel to create the first draft, that he repeated the process for the reply, and that the false quotations came from artificial intelligence he did not verify. The court denied him compensation for the appeal, referred the opinion for possible disciplinary proceedings and to the Kentucky Bar Association, and by separate order removed him, locked his briefs and ordered replacement counsel to file new ones, which it said further delayed resolution of the defendant's appeal. The court acknowledged his candour and his 40 years without discipline.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 19/10/2026
Jun 2025PolandUnidentified image tool
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
26 Mar 2026 to 19 Aug 2026AustraliaUnidentified AI drafting tool
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
15 Jul 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
In a published opinion of July 2026, the Arizona Court of Appeals found that a self-represented appellant's opening brief in a probate dispute contained eight citations, six of them deficient, including two cases that do not exist. In a written explanation and at a hearing on the false citations he acknowledged relying on generative AI to write the brief and said he did nothing to verify the citations. The court struck the inaccurate and false citations, rejected the appeal because no supportive authority remained, held that citing a hallucinated case is sanctionable whether or not it is intended, and ordered him to pay the share of the other party's attorney's fees traceable to the fake citations. Because he said he did not intend to deceive and is not legally trained, the court chose this narrow sanction over contempt or fines. It described the opinion as the first published Arizona ruling on generative AI hallucinations in filings.
Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026
Feb 2025 to May 2025IndiaUnidentified video tool
The Indian Express reported in August 2025 that, according to the Pune police, a man from Pune fell prey to a deepfake video of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murty promoting AI-based share-trading tools and lost Rs 43 lakh. According to the complaint, an Instagram advertisement promised Rs 17 lakh in 28 days on a Rs 21,000 investment and led to the video, which the probe found to be a deepfake; the video also allegedly included deepfake investor testimonials. Between February and May 2025 he received more than 120 calls from international numbers, was pressured and at times coerced into further payments, was advised to borrow from friends or take loans, and made 19 transfers totalling Rs 43.68 lakh to mule accounts before the callers stopped responding and he had exhausted his savings. The police registered an FIR after a preliminary inquiry. They do not say how they established that the video was a deepfake.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/10/2026
Aug 2026United StatesUnidentified document-analysis tool
In a memorandum of decision issued in early August 2026, a Connecticut Superior Court judge found that a motion for default and a notice filed on 24 July 2026 by a self-represented plaintiff, in a suit against a healthcare provider over access to records, carried text in tiny white type that was invisible to a human reader but legible to software. The concealed text told any AI model reviewing the filing to make its output agree with the filing and to work toward reversing the Chief Clerk's denial of his default request. After the court gave notice of a sanctions hearing, he hid further messages in later filings, which he said were jokes. The court treated the first instruction as a prompt injection, did not believe his explanation that he was auditing the court's use of AI, and rescinded his ability to file electronically, so that future filings must be made on paper at the clerk's office; Ars Technica reports that no monetary penalty was imposed. The court said the Connecticut Judicial Branch does not use AI to review or decide filings and that the motion was denied on its merits from a printed copy, so the hidden text affected no ruling. The plaintiff told Reuters, according to Ars Technica, that his intent was to audit the court.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/10/2026
Aug 2026MalaysiaUnidentified image tool
Negeri Sembilan police said on 17 October 2026, in a statement reported by Bernama and RTM, that they had received five reports, lodged by parents or guardians between 20 and 23 August 2026, over the circulation of photographs of female students at a secondary school in Seremban that were edited using AI to resemble pornographic images. The police describe the victims as aged 14 to 17 and the suspect as an upper-secondary student whom the school suspended for five days in August; the case is being investigated under child sexual offences law and the Penal Code. A lawyer for a group of parents told a press conference that the images came to light on 12 August, when a younger pupil found them on an unlocked phone at school, alleged that the student made about 200 such images, and said the school had acknowledged more than 300 affected girls at a September meeting; he said there is no direct evidence that the images were sold. A mother said her child still has trouble sleeping every night. After the girls were questioned at the police headquarters on 17 October, their lawyers alleged that police had made them face the suspect during identification. The AI tool is not identified.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/10/2026
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
31 Mar 2026 to 11 Sept 2026United StatesIrys (reported)
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ordered a senior associate at Musick, Peeler & Garrett, the outside firm defending State Farm in a homeowner's lawsuit over a fire-damaged home, to pay a $999.99 sanction after the associate's motions in limine cited cases, quotations and holdings that did not exist, Law360 reported on 14 September 2026. In a declaration reproduced by Reason's Volokh Conspiracy, the associate said she used an AI program called Irys to prepare the motions, did not check some of the citations, and wrongly believed the program was cite-checked through the firm's Westlaw subscription; she confirmed seven non-existent case citations across eight motions. The plaintiff's lawyers found the citations and raised them at a status conference on 7 August 2026. The firm acknowledged citations that appeared to be AI hallucinations, and its lead trial counsel apologised to the court and the plaintiff. According to Law360, the judge had considered up to $5,000, and the amount set is one cent below the level at which California law requires a court to notify the State Bar.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · 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
May 2026BrazilGalileu
In May 2026 a judge of the 3rd Labour Court of Parauapebas, in the Brazilian state of Pará, fined two lawyers about R$84,000 after text in white font on a white background was found in a document they filed for a worker in a labour claim. According to the sentence as reported by G1, the hidden text was detected while the judgment was being drafted with Galileu, a generative AI tool the labour courts use to help judges and staff draft sentences, and its evident intention was to make the AI produce a superficial defence or a compromised draft judgment. The judge called the technique prompt injection. The lawyers said they disagreed with the decision and that there was never any command to manipulate the judge's decision, describing the text as an attempt to protect their client from the AI; one of them said she did not work on labour cases. In October 2026 the regional labour court announced that a Connecticut Superior Court judge had cited the decision when sanctioning a litigant for misuse of AI.
AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026
21 Nov 2025United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
On 25 September 2026 a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a defence motion for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 against a California-barred lawyer admitted for one case (pro hac vice) to represent the plaintiff. The court found that an opposition the lawyer filed on 21 November 2025 was replete with inaccurate citations, including a quotation attributed to a case with a fictitious Westlaw citation, and that later oppositions cited a non-existent case. In response to the court's order to show cause, the lawyer admitted using AI to draft the first opposition and explained a belief that the enterprise-level AI software in use did not hallucinate cases. The court revoked the lawyer's pro hac vice admission and ordered the lawyer's firm to pay the defendants' reasonable fees and costs, capped at $10,000. The order does not name the AI product.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 16/10/2026
14 Sept 2026BrazilUnidentified document-analysis tool
A São Paulo business and arbitration court found that every page of a defendant's written defence carried a hidden instruction, placed above his lawyer's letterhead, asking any AI that analysed the petition to give a favourable opinion and praise the lawyer's probity and care. In a sentence dated 14 September 2026 the judge treated this as prompt injection and bad-faith litigation: although the defendant won on the merits, he was ordered to pay the plaintiff a fine of 9% of the updated case value, and the sentence was sent to the São Paulo bar to examine the lawyer's conduct. No source says any AI system read the instruction.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · 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
Jun 2026 to Sept 2026GermanyUnidentified image tool (suspected)
The Gauting police inspection in Bavaria, Germany, reported on 2 October 2026 that a man had filed a complaint after realising he had been the victim of investment fraud. According to the police report, he said he had clicked on an advertising banner for an investment on the website of a large German news magazine, and the police say he was presumably lured by the combination of an AI-generated image of a well-known television presenter with a supposedly lucrative investment strategy. After he entered his email address and phone number on the trading platform, four women callers contacted him from 4 June 2026 until September and led him to make four payments totalling more than 25,000 euros to accounts in Bulgaria, Malta and Lithuania. His bank could not reverse the transfers because he had authorised them himself. The police do not say how they concluded that the image was AI-generated, and the presenter is not named in the police report.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 16/10/2026
May 2025Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
In June 2025 the Stockholm police region warned that since the end of May it had received several complaints from people defrauded through social media adverts with AI-generated videos depicting doctors, who appeared to give advice and recommend medicines or vitamins. According to the police, viewers who followed the adverts to fraudulent websites were induced to enter card details, after which a considerably larger sum was charged and the details were stolen. Dagens Nyheter reported that the doctors used included the former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and the professor Agnes Wold, who told the paper of being furious. In July 2025 the Public Health Agency of Sweden said fake Facebook films imitating its former state epidemiologist were advertising products for diabetes or asthma, that it had reported them to the police and had asked Meta to remove them; he said it was sad that fraudsters were exploiting vulnerable people. Dagens Nyheter, as relayed by Omni, reported that the investigations were closed because the offences were judged to have been committed abroad. The number of defrauded people and their losses are not stated, and the police do not say how the AI generation was established.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026
7 May 2025 to 23 Jul 2025Event location unknownChatGPT
In an incarcerated man's lawsuit against Alabama prison officials in the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, two motions filed in May 2025 for the defence of a former Alabama corrections commissioner contained five citations that did not exist or did not support the propositions cited. Lawyers of the Butler Snow firm, which the state retains to defend its prisons, told the court that a partner had obtained the citations from ChatGPT and had not verified them. On 23 July 2025 Judge Anna M. Manasco publicly reprimanded three of the firm's lawyers, disqualified them from the case and referred the matter to the Alabama State Bar, and ordered them to give the order to clients, opposing counsel and judges in all their pending cases. She declined to suspend them and released the firm and two other lawyers without sanction.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 15/10/2026
17 Jul 2026United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool
The Boone County Sheriff's Office in Missouri said that on Friday 17 July 2026 a resident received a call whose caller ID showed their daughter's number. A voice that sounded like the daughter said she had been kidnapped at gunpoint, and another voice then demanded ransom. The office said it later determined that the voice was AI-generated, without saying how. Deputies found the daughter safe in Jefferson City and unaware of the call. The office called it the first AI voice-impersonation call it had encountered. No suspect had been identified by 19 July, and no source reports whether any money was paid.
Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026
23 Jun 2026United KingdomMicrosoft Copilot (reported)
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said, as reported by the BBC on 10 August 2026, that Derbyshire Constabulary had made a voluntary conduct referral on 23 June 2026, following an internal review of an officer's use of artificial intelligence and concerns that it was not in line with guidance and conditions issued by the force, and that the senior detective had been served notice of an investigation for alleged gross misconduct. On 22 October 2026 the IOPC said it is alleged the officer used AI to create policy decisions, assess and manage risk, justify decision-making and input sensitive operational and personal case data. It said the force had authorised Microsoft Copilot in May 2025 on condition that no operational, sensitive or personal data was entered, and that its investigation will analyse the officer's Copilot use from May 2025 to June 2026. The allegations are untested.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/10/2026