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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
8
Countries with reported events
2
Located 7 of 8 cases · 1 unknown
Languages in checked sources
2
Recorded for 8 of 8 cases

1 case has no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 1 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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8 of 868 published cases

Jun 2025 to Aug 2025AustraliaUnidentified chatbot

Fair Work Commission in Sydney upholds a software developer's dismissal, finding his reliance on AI-drafted complaint emails was counterproductive and led to it

A senior software developer employed for more than 11 years by Fujifilm Data Management Solutions in Australia was dismissed for serious misconduct on 7 August 2025 after a workplace bullying complaint escalated into a stream of complaint emails to managers. In [2026] FWC 835 (18 March 2026) the Fair Work Commission recorded that he agreed he relied on an AI large language model to prepare the emails, found that drafts were generated by AI, and recorded managers' unchallenged evidence that he appeared to consult ChatGPT during meetings. It found the emails inappropriate, combative and disproportionate, and said his use of AI 'was counterproductive. It led to his demise', appearing to give him a false sense of security. Because he accepted responsibility, the tribunal did not treat the AI use as an excuse; it held the dismissal was not unfair and dismissed his application. A Full Bench refused permission to appeal on 2 July 2026.

Core concern Medium reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 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

Sept 2025 to Jan 2026AustraliaUnidentified AI writing tool

Weldborough, Tasmania: AI-written tour-website article invented hot springs; publican says travellers, including a group of 24 drivers, detoured to find them

An AI-generated article on the Tasmania Tours booking website described "Weldborough Hot Springs", a "secluded forest retreat" with pools "rich in therapeutic minerals", as one of the best hot-spring experiences in Tasmania. No such springs exist: the Weld River that runs through Weldborough, a small town in north-east Tasmania, is cold. ABC News reported on 22 January 2026 that travellers who read the article had been turning up at the town's pub, the Weldborough Hotel, to ask for directions, and the publican said she was receiving daily calls and visits and that a group of 24 drivers on a trip from the mainland had taken a detour two days earlier to find the springs. ABC News reported that the article was posted in July 2025, and The Independent, citing ABC News and CNN, reported that inquiries began with a few calls in September 2025. The operator, Australian Tours and Cruises, said its outsourced AI content had "completely messed up", that some posts had gone live by mistake, and that all AI-generated blog posts had been taken down. The reports describe the travellers only as a group; no individual traveller is interviewed, and the AI tool is not named. In The Independent's paraphrase, the publican also said the post brought "a bit of a tourism boon" for Weldborough.

Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage

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

2025United KingdomUnidentified image tool

Exiled Hong Kong activist reports fear after sexualised deepfake letters reached former UK neighbours

The Guardian reported that letters containing digitally faked sexual images of an exiled Hong Kong activist were sent to her former neighbours in Maidenhead in recent weeks. The activist said she was terrified and described the letters as escalating harassment using AI or digital tools. The sender and exact image-creation method remain unknown. Earlier bounty letters and a separate Australian poster campaign are distinct events.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/09/2026

2025Event location unknownGrok (reported)

Australian campaigner reports threats and abuse involving AI-generated images

Caitlin Roper, campaigns manager at the Australian group Collective Shout, reports that during 2025 people sent and posted AI-generated images of her, including violent images and images altered with X's Grok feature, together with threats. The New York Times (as excerpted on a UC Berkeley page dated 31 October 2025) described her as traumatized by the threats she received that year. Roper says she spent at least an hour each morning reporting, blocking and documenting the abuse for months, and that police and the eSafety Commission gave little help. The senders are not identified in the inspected sources, and the exact dates of the images are not stated.

Core concern Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

1 Jul 2025 to 21 Aug 2025AustraliaCommonwealth Bank voice-bot

Australia: Commonwealth Bank announced 45 call centre job cuts it attributed to an AI voice-bot, then reversed them as an error, ABC reports

In late July 2025 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia confirmed to the ABC that it was cutting 45 call centre jobs after rolling out an AI chatbot, and ABC reports the bank had briefed the Finance Sector Union that the cuts were due to AI. The union raised a dispute at the Fair Work Commission and said members found call volumes rose after the bot was introduced. On 21 August 2025 ABC reported that the bank called the decision an error, apologised to the affected employees, said it had not adequately considered all relevant business considerations, and offered them the choice to keep their roles, be redeployed or leave. One employee told Yahoo Finance she had helped train a messaging bot known as Bumblebee, was told in late July her role was redundant, judged the redeployment offer unworkable and accepted voluntary redundancy. The bank's quoted statements say AI made customer help faster; the union calls AI a cover for cost cutting.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

12 Mar 2025 to 15 Mar 2025AustraliaChatGPT

NSW Reconstruction Authority says a former temporary staff member uploaded 2031 Resilient Homes participants' personal data to ChatGPT without authorisation

The NSW Reconstruction Authority says that between 12 and 15 March 2025 a former temporary staff member (called a former contractor in its first notice) uploaded a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet of Northern Rivers Resilient Homes Program information, 10 columns and more than 12,000 rows, to ChatGPT, an AI platform the Authority had not authorised. The Authority disclosed the breach on 6 October 2025, estimating that up to 3000 people were affected, and later said external forensic analysis confirmed that 2031 people had some of their data uploaded, including names, contact details, addresses, dates of birth, sensitive personal and health information and limited financial commentary. It says no driver licence, Medicare, passport or Tax File Numbers were disclosed and that there is no evidence the data is publicly available or was accessed by a third party; whether OpenAI retained or used the data is not addressed. The Authority apologised, contacted affected people with ID Support NSW, offered to compensate the replacement of compromised identity documents and notified the NSW Privacy Commissioner. A program participant told the ABC the information was deeply personal and that they felt concerned. No misuse of the data is reported.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Dec 2025AustraliaUnidentified video tool

Former NT Police assistant commissioner says an AI-generated sexually explicit video made from her official police photograph circulated among colleagues

Janelle Tonkin, a former assistant commissioner of the Northern Territory Police Force and now president of the Australasian Council of Women and Policing, said in a statement issued on 23 September 2026, after criminal proceedings on the matter were finalised, that in December 2025 she became aware that an AI-generated, sexually explicit video had been created using her official NT Police photograph; ABC News reports that the video was allegedly shared among serving members of the force and that she had taken former colleagues to court over it. She called the experience 'extremely distressing, personally and professionally' and said having her professional portrait 'turned into pornography and circulated among colleagues is something no person should have to experience'. The outcome of the court proceedings is not reported. An NT Police spokesperson said the force does not comment on internal investigations and was legally constrained from commenting on matters before the court, but that the conduct she was subjected to 'was, and always will be, totally unacceptable'; the NT Police Association condemned the conduct. Ms Tonkin said the video sat within a broader set of experiences in the force that she intends to describe later.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 25/09/2026

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: 23/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.