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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
148
Countries with reported events
34
Located 134 of 148 cases · 14 unknown
Languages in checked sources
30
Recorded for 148 of 148 cases

4 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 2 not yet reviewed and 2 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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148 of 1099 published cases · page 1 of 8

Dec 2024Thailand, CambodiaUnidentified video tool

Thai police say call-centre gang used AI to pose as officers on video calls; an actress lost 4 million baht and a court later ordered her bank to pay part

Thailand's Central Investigation Bureau said in February 2025 that two arrested members of a call-scam centre in Poipet, Cambodia, had used artificial intelligence technology to pretend to be police officers, and that the gang had tricked 163 people, including a Thai-British actress who lost 4 million baht. VnExpress, citing the South China Morning Post, reports that the actress received a video call in December 2024 from a man posing as a Department of Special Investigation official who kept her on the call while she made three transfers, and that police later said the network used AI to swap the callers' faces during video calls. The Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau said in June 2025 that the Criminal Court had sentenced four people in her case, one of them for posing as a police officer on video calls with her, and ordered them to repay the 4 million baht. On 8 July 2026 the Civil Court ordered Kasikornbank to pay 1 million baht plus interest after ruling that the bank failed to flag her after-midnight transfers. The police have not described how they established that AI was used.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 02/11/2026

2026IndiaUnidentified image tool

Durg (Chhattisgarh) police say a fake marriage bureau used AI-made photos of fictional women to take fees from people seeking marriage

Police in Durg district, Chhattisgarh, India, said in a statement reported on 30 October 2026 that they had raided a fake marriage bureau in Bhilai on 29 October and arrested its operator. According to the police account carried by regional outlets, the operator said under questioning that he advertised on Facebook and Instagram under three matrimony names using photos of fictional young women prepared with AI and fake mobile numbers. People in other states who wanted to marry contacted the bureau, were promised marriage to the woman they chose, paid a fee of 2,000 rupees and other sums by QR code, and were then blacklisted and cut off. Police said complaints against the bureau's bank accounts were registered on the national Samanvay portal and that the operation had run for about three months. A case was registered under sections 317(2) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the operator was remanded in judicial custody. The number of people who paid and the total taken are not reported, and the AI tool is not named.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/11/2026

2025Event location unknownChatGPT (reported)

Husband says wife's spiritual ChatGPT conversations spun her out of managed bipolar disorder; she stopped medication and was arrested for domestic violence

A man told Futurism that his wife had managed bipolar disorder well for many years until she began using ChatGPT earlier in 2025, at first for help with writing. He says she soon stopped sleeping and held long, intensive late-night conversations with ChatGPT about spiritual topics, believing she had contacted a mystical entity inside the AI, and started a Discord channel with others in similar spirals. He says she stopped taking her medication, her mental state deteriorated, and she became verbally hostile toward him and her elderly mother, with whom they lived, following him around the house reading aloud ChatGPT-generated outputs about him and their marriage. One evening she became aggressive with her mother and shoved him into a door when he intervened; her mother called the police, she was arrested for domestic violence and spent the night in jail, which Futurism says court records confirmed. The couple are divorcing, and she refuses treatment. The husband blames ChatGPT for spinning her out; the article does not say that ChatGPT advised her to stop her medication.

Core concern Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/11/2026

2025IndonesiaDreamFace and dupdub (reported)

Surabaya court jails two over AI deepfake videos of East Java Governor Khofifah offering cheap motorbikes that police say defrauded about 100 people

East Java regional police (Polda Jatim) said on 28 April 2025 that they had arrested three suspects from Pangandaran, West Java, after the provincial communications office reported TikTok videos in which Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa appeared to offer motorbikes for Rp500,000. According to the police, the videos were manipulated with AI deepfake technology, one suspect told investigators that the governor's video had been edited with AI, and people who answered the videos contacted a WhatsApp number and transferred money; police estimated about 100 victims in four provinces and Rp87.6 million taken over three months. The indictment read at the Surabaya District Court on 15 October 2025, as reported by Harian Disway, says the video was edited with the DreamFace app and dupdub.com so that the governor's lip movements and voice looked real, and gives the proceeds as Rp79.6 million. Suara Publik reported on 16 December 2025 that the court found two defendants guilty of jointly manipulating electronic information and sentenced each to three years in prison and a Rp500 million fine; the third suspect's case file was separate.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 01/11/2026

1 Jul 2025 to 18 Jul 2025IndiaUnidentified video tool

Mumbai police say ad agency staff let fraudsters run deepfake videos of a stock market analyst as investment ads; four arrested

Mumbai's West Region cyber police arrested four employees of Valueleaf, a Bengaluru-based digital advertising company, in October 2025, saying they had given Chinese fraudsters access to the company's Meta advertising IDs, which were used to run Facebook and Instagram ads with deepfake videos of stock market analysts and business news anchors. The case began with a complaint from a SEBI-registered research analyst who appears on television and found deepfake videos of himself in the ads; according to the complaint, the videos were created from his appearances on business news channels. Police say viewers who clicked were added to WhatsApp groups offering share tips, invested through fake trading apps, were shown large profits and could not withdraw their money; the deputy commissioner said several people were cheated and several cases registered. A police official said Meta had flagged the videos as deepfakes. Lokmat Times reports that the videos circulated from 1 to 18 July 2025 before Meta removed them. Police say the company received about Rs 3 crore. The four were booked for offences including cheating by personation and forgery and remanded in police custody; they reportedly said they did not know their services were being used for fraud. The analyst is not named in the sources, and how the videos were made is not described.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 31/10/2026

29 Oct 2026TaiwanUnidentified voice-cloning tool

Taiwan prosecutors arrest man over deepfake audio imitating Taipei mayoral candidate Puma Shen admitting kickbacks; investigators confirmed it was a deepfake

A recording that imitated the voice of Puma Shen (Shen Po-yang), the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate for mayor of Taipei, appeared on Threads late on 29 October 2026 under a caption calling it a suspected private recording; in it the voice admitted taking kickbacks from US arms purchases. Taiwan's Investigation Bureau said its forensic check confirmed the audio as deepfake content, and Taoyuan prosecutors said a man had made the clip with a highly realistic imitation of Shen's voice and spread it on social media. Prosecutors arrested him on 30 October, seized his phone and sought his detention for spreading falsehoods by a deepfake-voice method to make a candidate lose, an offence under the election law that carries up to seven years in prison. The Taoyuan District Court released him on NT$100,000 bail with an eight-month travel ban, CNA reports. At the hearing he admitted spreading the clip but said he had downloaded it from Facebook, and the court found the file did not yet show a link to whoever originally made it, TVBS reports. Shen said his team had taken legal action against those who made and shared the clip. The man is not named here.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 31/10/2026

Event date unknownTaiwan, ChinaUnidentified video tool

Taiwan police say a ring used AI deepfake face videos of at least 55 people in China to pass a digital-yuan app's identity check and take about NT$200 million

Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau said on 2 February 2026 that a fraud-services ring working with offshore scam call centres obtained personal data and photos of people in mainland China and used deepfake technology, which public broadcaster PTS reports as AI, to make face-verification videos of the victims. The videos passed the identity check of China's digital-yuan (e-CNY) app, letting the ring bind the victims' bank accounts and move their savings. Police count at least 55 victims and losses of about NT$200 million. Officers raided the ring's flat in Beitun, Taichung, in November 2024, and its financier was arrested in Thailand and returned to Taiwan; Taichung prosecutors indicted four people for fraud, computer misuse and organised crime. The dates of the individual thefts are not reported.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesA2E (reported)

Florida attorney general sues A2E operator, alleging its AI face-swap tool was used to make sexual images of a Tampa man's stepchildren and other victims

On 28 October 2026 Florida's attorney general filed a civil complaint in Sarasota County against Rengstorff Consulting Ltd, operator of the A2E AI platform, alleging that its nudification and face-swap tools let users make sexual images of non-consenting people, including children, without meaningful monitoring or reporting. The complaint cites a Tampa case: police arrested a man on 8 June 2026, and the complaint says he admitted using A2E's face-swap tool to make nudified images of eight people, including his two young stepchildren. WFLA reported on 25 June 2026 that detectives believed images were AI-generated, found searches for AI face-swap tools and charged him with six counts of generating altered sexual depictions without consent alongside child sexual abuse material charges. The complaint also cites a Tallahassee arrest in April 2026 in which some images carried an A2E watermark. The attorney general seeks an injunction, disgorgement and civil penalties. The allegations are untested. In an email to the Florida Phoenix reported on 30 October 2026, A2E said it was consulting its legal team, had always treated child sexual abuse material very seriously and had been cooperating with law enforcement to detect and prevent it.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 30/10/2026

Event date unknownLebanonUnidentified video tool

Lebanon police say pages sold remedies using AI-generated videos falsely showing a complainant endorsing them; arrests and raids followed

In a statement published on 28 October 2026, Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (ISF) said their Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Bureau had received a complaint, filed with the competent judiciary, against Facebook and TikTok pages that promoted various medicines and preparations using videos generated by artificial intelligence, in which the complainant appeared in a way that falsely suggested the complainant was promoting the products. The products were said to treat stomach and joint pain, prostate and heart problems, blood sugar and blood pressure, and included sexual enhancers and slimming preparations. A patrol caught two people in the act of handing dozens of orders to a delivery company, with 13,602 US dollars they said came from daily sales; raids in Beirut and other areas led to further arrests and the seizure of thousands of containers. The ISF said some mixtures did not match the ingredients on the labels, that paper records of thousands of orders indicated a large number of buyers, and that the Ministry of Public Health was testing the seized products. The ISF did not say how it established that the videos were AI-generated, and the complainant is not named.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/10/2026

13 Oct 2025 to 26 Nov 2025BrazilUnidentified video tool

Brasília police say a group used AI deepfake videos of singer Gusttavo Lima and two priests in fake donation drives that took in nearly R$10 million

The Federal District Civil Police (PCDF) in Brazil say a criminal group ran fake online donation campaigns that used images of elderly people, children and seriously ill people, and used artificial intelligence tools, including deepfakes, to make fake videos with the images of the singer Gusttavo Lima and the Catholic priests Marcelo Rossi and Fábio de Melo. The posts circulated on social media and sent people to pages imitating legitimate charity appeals; the money went to bank accounts the group controlled. Police say one company linked to the group received 215,575 transactions totalling about R$9.8 million between 13 October and 26 November 2025, mostly of R$30 and R$50, and that the number of transactions does not necessarily match the number of victims. On 28 October 2026 the PCDF launched Operação Cáritas with six preventive arrest warrants and search warrants in the Federal District and four states; five suspects had been arrested by the time of most reports (g1 reported six). How the police established that the videos were AI-made is not disclosed, and no response from the people depicted is reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/10/2026

13 Sept 2026JapanUnidentified website-generation tool

Japan: police say two teenagers used generative AI to build a fake payment-service site that took women's details, later used to pay for a hotel and consoles

Shiga prefectural police sent two teenagers' cases to prosecutors on 27 October 2026 on suspicion of violating Japan's unauthorised computer access law. According to the police announcement as reported by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Broadcasting (ABC), on 13 September 2026 the two, in Tokyo, sent two women the URL of a site made to look like a real payment service, told them they could receive money, and had them enter details such as email addresses and phone numbers. Police say the two used generative AI to make the phishing site, and the Yomiuri reports that one of them, who is believed to have used generative AI to make the fake site, said he did not have the skill to build a site without AI. The same day, police say, they logged into a travel-booking site with one woman's details and paid a Tokyo hotel bill of 182,830 yen; they were later re-arrested over three portable game consoles bought with another woman's account. Police believe they took about 50 people's information, including from other payment services, and charged about 5 million yen. Both admitted the allegations, according to the police. They are not named here.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026

Event date unknownBrazilUnidentified video tool

Rio Grande do Sul police say gang used deepfake video of Gisele Bündchen to sell a free skincare kit; Porto Alegre woman who paid the fee got nothing

A woman in Porto Alegre, Brazil, saw an online video in which the model Gisele Bündchen appeared to promote a free skincare kit, paid the R$44.57 shipping fee and received nothing. Her police report, registered on 4 August 2024, led the Rio Grande do Sul Civil Police to Operation Modo Selva. On 1 October 2025 police executed 26 court orders in five states against a group they say used deepfake videos of celebrities, including Gisele Bündchen and several TV presenters, in fake product promotions; four people had been arrested by the time of the reports. The investigating delegate said the criminals had created a deepfake of the model's image and voice. Police say the scheme moved at least R$20 million, and assets worth up to R$210 million were frozen. The model thanked police for finding criminals who use artificial intelligence for online scams. No charge or trial outcome has been reported since.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/10/2026

23 Feb 2024United KingdomMetropolitan Police live facial recognition

London: Met Police live facial recognition wrongly matched a man to his watchlisted brother; officers stopped him and he later received a settlement

On 23 February 2024 Shaun Thompson, a London community volunteer whom the 2026 judgment describes as 39, walked past a Metropolitan Police live facial recognition deployment near London Bridge station. The High Court records as not in dispute that the system detected a high level of facial similarity between images of him and the watchlist image of his brother, who was the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant, and generated an alert. According to the court's account, officers stopped, detained and questioned him and made him prove his identity, and when he declined to have his fingerprints taken he was threatened with arrest; he says the experience left him angry and distressed. Officers ended the engagement after checking police records about his brother, and he confirmed his identity with a passport photograph on his phone. Big Brother Watch, whose director was his co-claimant, says he was held for almost 30 minutes despite showing several identity documents. His judicial review claim about the stop, issued in May 2024, was withdrawn under a consent order agreed on 18 December 2024 on terms including a settlement sum paid to him. An amended challenge to the Met's revised live facial recognition policy of September 2024, brought with Big Brother Watch's director, was dismissed by the Divisional Court on 21 April 2026; the court said it was not judging the merits of the technology, and the claimants announced plans to appeal.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 26/10/2026

Event date unknownIndiaUnidentified image and document tool

Kanpur Dehat, India: police say a man posing as a Secretariat official used AI-made photos with national leaders and AI-made appointment letters in a job fraud

Police in Akbarpur, Kanpur Dehat district (Uttar Pradesh), arrested a man on the night of 23 October 2026 who, they say, called himself a deputy director at the state Secretariat in Lucknow and took money from job seekers for government posts. Five people had jointly complained on 22 October that he took lakhs of rupees from them, gave them fake appointment letters for review officer and clerk posts and threatened to kill them when they asked for their money back. According to the station officer as reported by Amar Ujala, his office held several AI-made pictures showing him with the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister and other public representatives, which police seized; Amar Ujala reports that he showed such pictures to win people's trust. In police questioning, as relayed by Amar Ujala and Aman Yatra Live, he said that he made a fake identity card with AI tools and that appointment letters and orders prepared with AI were printed and handed or posted to candidates. The police do not say how the AI use was established or which tool was used. He was produced in court and sent to jail, and police say they are searching for other members of the group.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 25/10/2026

Event date unknownHondurasChatGPT (reported)

San Pedro Sula, Honduras: police say a woman used AI and ChatGPT to fake bank-transfer receipts to deceive sellers of high-end phones

Honduras's National Police said on 24 October 2026 that they had arrested a 25-year-old woman in San Pedro Sula who, they say, found people selling high-end mobile phones on Facebook Marketplace and sent them fake bank-transfer receipts made with AI tools, including ChatGPT, so that they would believe she had paid. According to the police report as relayed by La Prensa, El Heraldo and TuNota, the deposits were not credited to the sellers' accounts. A seller alerted a motorcycle police unit while the attempt was under way, and she was arrested in the act on suspicion of attempted fraud. The outlets relay the preliminary findings in conditional wording; the police do not say how they established the AI use, and no seller's loss is quantified.

Core concern Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownUnidentified voice-cloning and deepfake tool

Nigeria: police say a suspect arrested in Lagos used AI voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate Elon Musk to victims of an investment scheme

The Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) said at a press briefing in Abuja on Friday 23 October 2026 that its operatives arrested three suspects in Lekki, Lagos State, on 14 October over alleged identity theft, investment fraud and money laundering. According to the centre's director, the suspects allegedly operated fake social media accounts impersonating prominent personalities to trick victims into transferring money, and were linked to a cryptocurrency investment scheme promoted through a website called Bitcoin Trading Hub. Investigators said one of the suspects used artificial intelligence voice cloning and deepfake technology to impersonate Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and communicate with victims, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. The police did not say how they established the AI use or which tools were involved, how many people were deceived or how much they lost. Seized devices were undergoing forensic examination to identify victims and trace the proceeds, and the three suspects remained in custody.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026

13 Apr 2024BrazilUnidentified facial recognition system

Aracaju (Brazil): facial recognition falsely matched a football fan to a wanted man; police led him from the stands and the state suspended the system

During the half-time interval of the Sergipe state football championship final at the Batistão stadium in Aracaju on 13 April 2024, military police took a personal trainer from the stands to a police room after the stadium's facial recognition system flagged him as a man with an open arrest warrant; he was searched and questioned and released once police confirmed he was not the person sought (G1, his lawyer and the military police). Sergipe's governor publicly regretted 'the failure of the facial recognition tool' and suspended its use until a new protocol was adopted. In June 2024 the man sued the state for 550,000 reais in moral damages; the state argued that the Aracaju municipality, not the state, had contracted the system. In December 2025 the judge rejected that preliminary objection, according to Mangue Jornalismo, which read the court file. No final judgment is reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 24/10/2026

10 Jun 2026United StatesGrok (reported)

Pennsylvania police say a mall worker used Grok to turn a photo he took of a teen girl in a park into child sexual abuse material; charged

Township police in Pennsylvania say a man who worked at a shopping mall photographed a teenage girl in a public park and used the AI app Grok to create child sexual abuse material from the photo, NBC10 Philadelphia reported on 23 October 2026. Officials cited by NBC10 say his devices held hundreds of AI-generated child sexual abuse videos and photos, other child sexual abuse material and more than 150 covert upskirt videos of women and teenage girls. The criminal complaint, as reported by the Delaware County Daily Times on 27 October, says the park photos were taken on 8 June 2026, that a matching AI video was created on 10 June, that records police obtained from Grok by warrant held the account's text prompts, and that investigators found 76 AI-generated videos and 53 AI images, fewer than the hundreds of files NBC10 relayed. The investigation began in June 2026 after a woman reported seeing such material on his phone; he was arrested on 21 October, posted bail and faces a preliminary hearing on 30 October. The charges are unproven.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool

New Jersey prosecutor says man posted AI-generated deepfake nude images of two adults with their real names and photos; charged

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey announced on 22 October 2026 the arrest of a man on charges of creating and distributing deceptive visual media, invasion of privacy, cyber-harassment and harassment. According to authorities, as reported by NJ.com, social-media posts showed two adult victims' real names and photographs alongside AI-generated deepfake nude images, and investigators identified him as the person behind the accounts. The investigation began in May 2026. The charges are unproven.

Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026

18 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified AI tool

São Luís (Brazil): Federal Police arrest Bar exam candidate they say used a phone linked to an AI tool to cheat

The Federal Police arrested a man in the act during the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) Exame de Ordem in São Luís, Maranhão, on Sunday 18 October 2026, according to the police account reported by Metrópoles and Migalhas. Police say officers sent to the exam venue after a criminal complaint about possible fraud found him using a mobile phone integrated with an artificial-intelligence tool to cheat. He was booked in the act for fraud in an exam of public interest and released after paying bail. Police said the investigation continues into the extent of the attempt and whether others took part. The reports do not name the AI tool, say whether it produced answers, or report an exam disqualification or charging decision.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

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.