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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
19
Countries with reported events
8
Located 16 of 19 cases · 3 unknown
Languages in checked sources
6
Recorded for 19 of 19 cases

8 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 8 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.

Reported severity MediumLow
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19 of 1099 published cases

Dec 2023 to Mar 2024United StatesGrammarly (reported)

Massachusetts: federal court refuses to undo a high school's penalties on a pupil found to have submitted Grammarly AI text with invented citations

In late 2023 a junior at a public high school in Hingham, Massachusetts, and a classmate submitted a script for an AP U.S. History project that, a federal court later found on a preliminary record, contained text copied from Grammarly, a publicly available AI tool, including citations to nonexistent books, with no acknowledgement of AI use. Turnitin and other AI detection tools had flagged the script, and a school official says the pupil admitted using Grammarly. In December 2023 the school treated it as cheating: the pupil failed two parts of the project, served a Saturday detention and was rejected from the National Honor Society in spring 2024, though he was later admitted. His parents sued, arguing the school had not made its AI rules clear; on 20 November 2024 the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts refused a preliminary injunction to undo the penalties, and in February 2025 the parties dismissed the case with prejudice.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified chatbot

Alcorn State instructor says 32 of 35 students failed part of a midterm after a hidden prompt showed chatbot-written answers; one later had her grade changed

An Alcorn State University history professor in Mississippi said in TikTok videos from 20 July 2026, reported by TechSpot, Fox News and SuperTalk Mississippi, that he had hidden an instruction in white text in a midterm discussion question telling an AI to place the word Madagascar in the answer in a way that makes no sense. According to his account, 32 of 35 students across two classes pasted the question into a chatbot and submitted its output, which mentioned Madagascar in nonsensical sentences, and those students failed that portion of the midterm. He said he let students contest the grade or resubmit their own response; two contested, and one student had her grade changed after saying she had read the hidden text in dark mode and thought it was part of the assignment. He later reported final grades that included one F. The account rests on the instructor's videos; no student or university statement is reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownSwedenUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)

Lund University student who denies cheating is suspended for six weeks after the disciplinary board judges her fast-written exam answers AI-made, papers report

A student at Lund University wrote close to 1,500 words in six minutes during an exam in May, while other students took around two hours, according to Aftonbladet's relay, dated 28 September 2026, of a Sydsvenskan report. The teacher's report to the university said a writing speed of around 300 words a minute is not realistic for independently produced answers. The student denies cheating: she says she had technical problems, believed the exam would not be graded and wrote only 20 to 50 words per question. The university's disciplinary board sided with the teacher, judged that she had used AI and suspended her from her studies for six weeks. The report does not name an AI tool or describe any detection tool.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified AI-text detector

Ombudsman upholds autistic student's complaint over AI-misconduct zero mark from panel with detection-software report; student says provider later cleared them

A case summary published in July 2025 by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA), the independent student complaints scheme for England and Wales, describes a student with autism who was accused of including large sections of AI-generated content in an essay. The student denied using AI and submitted planning and notes. A disciplinary panel, which had the provider's AI detection software report and compared the essay with other work by the student, found academic misconduct and gave a mark of zero with any reassessment capped at a pass; the provider rejected the appeal, in which the student said the same software had earlier flagged another of their essays in a case where it had been agreed they had not used AI. The OIA found the complaint Justified: the panel had not properly considered the student's evidence, had not shared some evidence it relied on, and had not given sufficient reasons. It recommended reconsideration and changes to the provider's rules, and the student told the OIA that on reconsideration the provider decided there had been no misconduct. The provider and the software are not named.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 23/10/2026

14 Sept 2026 to 25 Oct 2026SwedenUnidentified AI writing tool

Luleå university board suspends two students for six weeks over unauthorised AI use whose submitted work cited invented sources, local paper reports

The disciplinary board of Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in northern Sweden decided six disciplinary cases and suspended five students from teaching for six weeks, from 14 September to 25 October 2026, Norrbottens-Kuriren reported on 21 September 2026. In two of the cases, according to the newspaper, the matter was unauthorised use of AI in which the submitted work contained invented source references, among them a reference to a book that does not exist. The other suspensions concerned plagiarism of a classmate's lab report and unauthorised notes at an exam; a sixth student received a warning. The report does not name the AI tool, the courses or the students and quotes neither the students nor the university.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified AI writing tool

Student complaints ombudsman finds a zero mark reasonable for a dissertation the student said was written with help from unacknowledged AI

A case summary published in July 2025 by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA), the independent student complaints scheme for England and Wales, describes a student who was called to a viva over concerns about a dissertation and told the examiners there that AI had been used to help write it. The student agreed the AI material was not referenced and had not declared the AI use on the form the provider required. A panel found academic misconduct and gave a mark of zero; the provider rejected the student's appeal. The student complained to the OIA, saying they received no credit for being honest about using AI or for the time and effort invested. The OIA found the complaint Not Justified, concluding that the provider followed its procedures, gave the student a fair opportunity to respond and applied a proportionate penalty. The summary does not name the provider, give the date of the events or say which AI tool was used.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 23/10/2026

Jun 2025NorwayUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)

University of Bergen student reported over suspected AI use after source errors has exclusion struck on appeal after 15 months, student newspaper reports

A student at the University of Bergen (UiB), whom the student newspaper Studvest calls "Anna", submitted a portfolio exam in spring 2025. In June 2025, after the grading deadline, she was told her grade was withheld on suspicion of cheating. According to Studvest, several errors in the source references were why the course coordinator suspected use of AI and reported her to UiB's board for student cases. She says she had by mistake submitted an unfinished draft with a to-do list and notes to herself, and her lawyer told UiB the source errors came from that draft. In March 2026 the board annulled the exam and excluded her from UiB for two semesters, and UiB upheld the decision on 29 May 2026. On her appeal, the national appeals board for cheating cases (Felles klagenemnd) found that the wrong-file submission justified cutting the exclusion to one semester and struck the exclusion entirely because of UiB's long handling time. She describes shame and 15 months of uncertainty that made it hard to concentrate and hurt her grades. Whether she used AI is not established in the account; UiB says it does not comment on individual cases.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026

14 Oct 2026South KoreaUnidentified AI problem-solving tool

Konkuk University says a student got a zero and an F after a friend solved midterm questions with AI and relayed the answers to a smartwatch

In a midterm exam on 14 October 2026 in a major course of about 100 students at Konkuk University in Seoul, a student sent the questions to a friend through a camera attached to the chest; the friend solved them using AI and sent the answers to the student's smartwatch, according to the professor's notice to students as reported by JoongAng Ilbo on 21 October 2026. The professor became suspicious of a perfect score, asked the student to solve the same problems again, and the student could not and confessed. The university said the professor gave the student a zero on the exam and an F in the course under its regulations for cheating by writing answers using AI and a smartwatch, and the department decided to ban cameras and watches from the final exam onward. The AI tool is not named, and no consequence for the friend is reported.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

2026South KoreaUnidentified AI coding tool

Seoul National University professor penalised 36 of 62 computer engineering students who, he says, admitted using banned generative AI on assignments

In the first semester of 2026, 36 of the 62 students in a fourth-year computer engineering course on computer networking at Seoul National University were penalised for using AI on coding assignments, according to an SNU official and the course's professor as reported by JoongAng Ilbo and Yonhap on 30 July 2026. The syllabus said all course activities would be conducted without generative AI. The professor gave zero marks on the affected assignments to 25 students who came forward and a D-minus course grade to 11 who admitted AI use only when interviewed; he said all 36 admitted using AI. The department's student government objected that the criteria were unclear and that honest students were penalised while others may not have been; the professor rejected this. On 16 October 2026 a lawmaker raised SNU's AI cheating incidents at the National Assembly audit, and the university president said its AI guidelines needed to be supplemented.

Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 21/10/2026

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

29 Jan 2026NetherlandsUnidentified AI writing tool

Leiden law student's thesis invalidated and exams barred over references he says an AI tool distorted or invented; Council of State annuls fraud sanction

A law student at Leiden University used a generative AI tool to spell-check his bachelor thesis and to check and order its reference list. Seven of the thesis's footnote references (one of them appearing twice, out of 36 footnotes with references) were wrong in the final version; according to his explanation, the tool had distorted some of them, for example with wrong years or author initials, and invented others. On 29 January 2026 the faculty's exam board declared the thesis invalid and excluded him until 28 January 2027 from the thesis track and every exam in the faculty's programmes, reasoning that the fictitious references indicated unauthorised use of generative AI and therefore fraud. The university's appeals board for examinations found in March 2026 that he had plausibly shown he used generative AI to prepare his reference list, which it called a permitted use, but held him responsible for the non-existent sources; the exam board then re-imposed the invalidation with an exclusion until 29 July 2026, and the appeals board upheld that in July. On 14 October 2026 the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State (Raad van State) found his explanation plausible, held that no more than carelessness had been shown, and annulled the sanction; the thesis must now be graded, and the examiner may take the incorrect references into account in the grade.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 17/10/2026

11 Dec 2025NetherlandsUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)

Dutch Council of State upholds Maastricht University fraud sanction on a law student whose assignment cited non-existent sources the university attributed to AI

On 11 December 2025 an examination board at Maastricht University found that a European Law School student had committed fraud in a weekly assignment whose purpose was to find and correctly cite legal sources. The board said three of the four sources contained wrong journals, years, titles and page numbers, that the sources did not exist, and that the way they were included pointed to the use of AI; it concluded the student had made unauthorised use of AI. The sanction was a formal warning in the student's file, invalidation of all assessment components of the course and exclusion from the resit. The student argued that no technical analysis or AI-detection tool had been used, that she was never asked whether she had used AI, and that the errors came from completing the work in a hurry from memory and notes with a poor internet connection. The university's examination appeals board rejected her appeal on 5 March 2026, and on 12 August 2026 the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State dismissed her further appeal and her claim for damages for reputational and psychological harm.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 16/10/2026

Apr 2026United StatesUnidentified AI coding tool (suspected)

Over half of a Purdue programming class dropped the course after the professor emailed 200-plus students alleging AI cheating; allegations later withdrawn

In April 2026 the professor teaching CS 240, a programming course at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, emailed more than 200 students in the class alleging that he had caught them cheating on assignments with AI tools, according to the Lafayette Journal & Courier. The email gave the students a form on which to admit or deny AI use on each assignment and warned that failure to respond would result in an F for the course and an unfavourable letter to the dean of students. It was sent on the deadline for dropping a class, and more than half of the class unenrolled. A student quoted by the newspaper said the main objection was that he had not said which assignments were flagged or how they were detected. After a weekend of attention on social media and a class discussion called by the department, it was announced that the allegations of cheating and AI use so far in the semester were dropped and that anyone could re-enrol. The professor said he would keep using his AI detection tool. No source describes what that detection method was, and how many of the accused had used AI is not known.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 15/10/2026

Aug 2025United KingdomUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)

St Andrews medical student says a marker's suspicion of AI use led to an upheld misconduct finding, overturned at a second hearing after appeal

The BBC reported on 10 August 2026 that a University of St Andrews medical student received an academic misconduct alert in August of the previous year saying his dissertation had been flagged as AI-generated. According to the university, the dissertation was assessed by two human markers, one of whom raised concerns about possible AI use; the marker's notes, seen by the BBC, cite a polished, uniform tone, flawless grammar, formulaic paragraph structure and frequent dashes. The student says the link to his virtual hearing arrived five minutes after the start time. A week after the hearing the allegations were upheld, which capped his mark at a bare pass. The university accepted his appeal because of the late link, and at a second hearing in mid-November it did not uphold the allegations. He later received his full mark. The student says he was consumed by worries throughout that semester, that he deferred his exams and that his graduation was delayed until December. The university says the appeal succeeded solely on a procedural issue. The report describes no AI-detection tool, and the student says he did not use AI.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 12/10/2026

2024AustraliaTurnitin AI-text detector

Australian Catholic University: ABC reports students wrongly accused of AI cheating, one case resting on a lone AI-detection report

The ABC reported on 9 October 2025 that Australian Catholic University (ACU) registered nearly 6,000 cases of alleged academic misconduct across its nine campuses in 2024, according to internal documents, and that about 90 per cent of the referrals related to AI use. The ABC reports that the university's case against a final-year paramedic student hinged on a single AI-generated report that, the student said, marked 84 per cent of an essay as AI-written; the student produced dozens of pages of evidence and the ABC describes the student as wrongly accused. Students the ABC spoke to said they were notified at the end of semester, had little time to respond and waited months to be cleared, and the ABC saw emails asking students for handwritten notes and internet search histories. A final-year nursing student was cleared after six months, during which her transcript read 'results withheld'; she believes this cost her a graduate position, and the report does not say what evidence prompted her referral. The ABC says internal documents show ACU knew of problems with the detector for more than a year before abandoning the Turnitin tool in March. ACU's deputy vice-chancellor called the figures substantially overstated, said cases resting solely on Turnitin's AI detection were dismissed immediately, acknowledged investigations were not always timely and said the university regretted the impact on some students.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 06/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)

University of Houston-Downtown senior given an F over a professor's claim of AI-generated coursework; deans' committee overturns it after two failed appeals

FOX 26 Houston reported on 2 October 2026 that a senior at the University of Houston-Downtown received an F in a music appreciation course 'last August' after the professor claimed the student had submitted several journal entries and discussion posts 'determined to be copy and pasted AI generated'. The student appealed. The professor and then the chair of the Arts and Communication Department denied the appeal, and a student discipline committee of four deans ruled in the student's favour. The station quotes the committee's decision as based on concerns about the reliability and consistency of the evidence used to support the original finding. The report does not say how the work was determined to be AI-generated or whether a detection tool was used, and it carries no university statement. The student told the station of being shocked and incensed by the grade, after high marks elsewhere in the course, and relieved by the outcome.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 05/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesTurnitin AI-text detector (reported)

Two Florida Atlantic University students told the student newspaper they received zero grades after their work was flagged as AI-written, one after a professor applied Turnitin; both grades were raised after the students emailed their professors

The University Press, Florida Atlantic University's student newspaper, reported on 29 September 2026 the accounts of two students who say they were penalised over AI-detection flags. A computer science sophomore submitted a paper 'last year' and received a zero after the professor flagged it for AI use after applying it to Turnitin; after the student emailed the professor, the grade was improved. The student says that when they ran the paper through a detector, it said the writing was overly human-sounding. A senior sociology major was accused of using AI on an essay and received a zero with little communication from the professor; after the student emailed to say no AI was used, the professor waived the penalty and gave a 50. The newspaper describes the second student's grade as due to a false AI detection and does not name the tool in that case. No professor's or university account of either case is reported.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 05/10/2026

30 Sept 2026 to 1 Oct 2026Event location unknownTurnitin AI-text detector (reported)

First-person forum account: a student in an AP Research course says their teacher reported that Turnitin's AI checker found their source annotations '100% AI' and said the checker never gives false accusations; the student says they wrote the work themselves and can show document history

In a public post to r/ApplyingToCollege early on 1 October 2026 (UTC), a student taking the Advanced Placement (AP) Research course writes that their teacher told them that day that their source annotations had been found to be '100% ai' by Turnitin. The student says they did not use AI. They say their document history shows them typing over the course of an hour and that some sentences closely follow notes they wrote for an earlier assignment. They also say they had faced no AI accusation in a research course with the same teacher the year before. By the student's account, the teacher said the matter would be discussed later and that Turnitin's AI checker feedback never ends up being a false accusation. The student says the accusation leaves them upset and unsure how to defend themselves. No grade or disciplinary outcome is reported. The account is uncorroborated, and one commenter doubted it.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/10/2026

Nov 2023VietnamUnidentified AI writing tool and Turnitin (reported)

Ho Chi Minh City: a university student lost half the marks on a writing-course essay after the lecturer found AI use, which the lecturer said specialised plagiarism software detects; the vice-rector endorsed the deduction and the student feared failing the course

In November 2023 a student at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology (HUFLIT) wrote on the university's anonymous confessions page that a writing-course essay had been returned with 50 percent of the marks deducted because the lecturer found it had been written with AI. The student said the lecturer had warned that AI-written essays would be treated as plagiarism if detected, had not expected detection, and learned from the lecturer that Vietnamese-to-English translation software could also be counted as AI use when checked with specialised plagiarism software; the student did not know whether the course could still be passed. The vice-rector told Tuoi Tre that the lecturer had told students before the assignment not to use AI applications, that the course tests independent writing, that using an AI support tool breached academic-integrity rules, and that the deduction was appropriate, while noting the university had no formal document on sanctions for AI use. A university representative told Thanh Nien and Dan Tri that the university does not ban AI but requires transparency about tools used, uses paid AI-detection services when necessary, and had not received a formal complaint from the student; a later report said the university had bought Turnitin licences for lecturers to check AI use in essays.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 20/09/2026

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.