2020Event location unknownHireVue
City AM and Cosmetics Business reported in March 2022, relaying the BBC Three documentary Computer Says No and the Times, that three make-up artists at MAC, an Estée Lauder Companies brand, lost their jobs in a 2020 redundancy process after being told to reapply for their roles through a video interview run by HireVue and marked by an algorithm. City AM reports that they were made redundant partly as a result of the automated judgement. The women said no one could explain how they had been scored, and one said nobody watched the video. Estée Lauder settled their claims out of court; the amount was not disclosed. The company says staff were told in advance about the HireVue skills assessment, that the process was used in tandem with human decision-making, that facial recognition made up about 0.25% of the overall assessment and performance data and qualitative feedback most of it, and that any suggestion facial recognition played a decisive role is false. HireVue said its video-analysis component had been discontinued about two years earlier. How much the HireVue score weighed in each decision is not reported.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
11 Oct 2026Event location unknownPangram AI-text detector
A week after a Zimbabwean writer won the £10,000 2026 Caine Prize for African Writing, The Atlantic published an article on Sunday 11 October 2026 whose central evidence was a scan by Pangram, an AI-text detection tool, flagging almost the entire winning story as AI-generated. The Caine Prize said it had begun a review: according to its chair, the author would send documentation of his drafts and the prize was talking to the judges and to the magazine that first published the story. The chair told the BBC that The Atlantic had published before a full investigation, tainting the prize and the winner, and said a detector should not be the final arbiter. The author denied using AI and said he had a documented history of the story's development; his literary agency said it was confident the story was his own work. No finding has been announced.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 14/10/2026
Mar 2026United KingdomGrok
In March 2026, X users prompted Grok, the chatbot built into the X app, to write 'vulgar' posts about Liverpool FC and Manchester United. In reply to a request that mentioned Hillsborough and Heysel, Grok posted a message that, according to the Guardian, accused Liverpool supporters of causing the deadly crush at Hillsborough in 1989, repeating claims that official inquiries and the 2016 inquests rejected. In reply to other users it posted offensive comments about the death of Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and about the 1958 Munich air disaster. The BBC reported on 9 March 2026 that a woman whose father died at Hillsborough described the Grok comment as probably one of the most disgusting things she had ever read, and that the chairman of a Hillsborough survivors' support alliance called the posts triggering. Liverpool FC and Manchester United complained to X, a UK government spokesperson called the posts sickening and irresponsible, and some of the posts were removed. Grok replied to complaining users that it follows prompts without added censorship and that there was no initiation of harm on its end.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 08/10/2026
Dec 2024 to Sept 2026AustraliaUnidentified AI writing tool
In December 2024 the Parole Board of Tasmania added a condition to the parole of Susan Neill-Fraser, released in 2022 after serving 13 years for murder and who maintains her innocence, barring her from communicating with media to claim innocence or wrongful conviction; a broader condition replaced it in May 2025. On 15 September 2026 the Supreme Court of Tasmania declared the conditions invalid. Her counsel told the court that the board's secretary had used artificial intelligence to prepare a rationale document justifying the condition and that it cited case law that did not exist. The Human Rights Law Centre, which represented her, says the State conceded that the board's decision-making was affected by a document containing legal authorities that were likely AI-generated hallucinations, and the ABC reports the court found the board relied on that document. The board had withdrawn the condition in August 2026. Tasmania's Attorney-General announced an independent investigation of the board's professional standards over its use of unverified AI, and the Justice Department announced a review of AI use in past parole decisions.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 06/10/2026
2024AustraliaTurnitin AI-text detector
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
11 Apr 2024United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
On 11 April 2024 Toledo police officers stopped a pickup truck after a Flock license-plate camera alerted them to a stolen plate. According to the police report and body-camera footage reported by 13abc and ABC News, the camera had misread the plate, which was not stolen. Officers drew their guns, ordered the driver out and to the ground, and a K-9 handler released a police dog as he began to kneel. The driver told ABC News he was bitten seven times on his forearm and elbow, was traumatized and could not work; he was arrested and charged with obstruction, resisting arrest and, later, failure to comply. Prosecutors dropped all charges in August 2024. The department found the dog deployment within policy and reprimanded the officer who made the stop for failing to visually verify the plate against the reader's information. Business Insider reported in March 2026 that police records show the camera read a 7 on the plate as a 2, that the man lost feeling in his fingers, gave up his lawn-care business and forklift work, sold his truck and was evicted, and that he had sued the officer and the city and settled in October for $35,000.
Contextual tracker case High reported severity Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 04/10/2026
17 Apr 2026 to 31 May 2026Event location unknownMeta AI support assistant
Meta announced the rollout of its AI support assistant on Facebook and Instagram on 19 March 2026. Meta's filing with the Maine Attorney General (notice dated 5 June 2026) says unauthorized third parties exploited a vulnerability in its AI-assisted Instagram account recovery tool (High Touch Support) to receive password reset links for accounts they did not own, and the listing gives 17 April 2026 as the breach date and 31 May 2026 as the discovery date. Videos that attackers posted, as described by TechCrunch, 404 Media and Krebs on Security, show attackers asking the assistant in a chat to link a new email address to a target username. Reported victims include the security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who posted that her password was changed without her knowledge, the Instagram account of the U.S. Space Force's Chief Master Sergeant, and the accounts of Sephora and a dormant Obama White House page (TechCrunch marks the last as disputed by Meta). Krebs and the BBC report pro-Iran defacement of some accounts, and TechCrunch reports that some victims were locked out and that short handles were offered for resale. The filing gives 20225 persons affected in total and 30 in Maine, and the notice calls the Maine figure an upper bound. Meta says the tool worked as intended, that a bug in a separate code path failed to check the email address, and (through a spokesperson to Gizmodo) that the failure was not due to the AI agent itself. Meta says it disabled the tool on 31 May 2026, the day it discovered the exploitation.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 12 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
19 Mar 2026United States, United KingdomPangram AI-text detector
On 19 March 2026 Hachette Book Group said it had cancelled the US publication of the horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard (Orbit imprint) and would not continue the UK edition (Wildfire imprint, first released in November 2025). Reports say the decision followed an investigation by Hachette and came a day after the New York Times asked the publisher about online allegations that the text was largely AI-generated. The allegations came from readers on Goodreads, Reddit and YouTube and from AI-detector results, including a 78.4 percent AI-generated score on the Pangram detector that a publishing consultant says two other services confirmed. Ballard denied personally using AI in emails to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and told the New York Times that an acquaintance hired to edit the original self-published version used AI. Ballard wrote that "my name is ruined" and "my mental health is at an all time low", and said legal action was being pursued. Hachette’s public statements cite its commitment to original creative expression. The sources inspected do not report what its investigation found. Whether AI generated any of the text, and who used it, is unresolved.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity
AI involvement disputed · Causal attribution disputed · 9 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
2026United KingdomFacewatch facial recognition
A 67-year-old shopper told the BBC and the Guardian that staff at a Home Bargains store in Chester told the shopper to leave in front of other people because the shopper had come up on the store's Facewatch system as a shoplifter. Facewatch later sent the shopper a photo with words saying items had been put into a bag and stolen. Facewatch said the shopper should not have been on its system and that the image and associated record were permanently removed. The Guardian reports that a subject access request showed the shopper had been incorrectly associated with a shoplifting incident on an earlier visit, and that Facewatch's chief executive attributed the three cases in the article, which include this shopper's, to human error in store processes. Home Bargains declined to comment. The shopper reports feeling physically sick and helpless. The Guardian reports that Home Bargains later offered an apology and a 100 pound voucher on condition of confidentiality, which the shopper declined. The year of the visit is inferred to be 2026 from the BBC report of 22 February 2026.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
Dec 2025CanadaGoogle AI Overviews
In December 2025 Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac said a First Nation north of Halifax cancelled his concert planned for 19 December after reading a Google AI-generated search summary that said he had convictions for sexual offences. He says the statements were false and came from online articles about another man in Atlantic Canada with the same last name. The First Nation apologised in writing and Google amended the search results. MacIsaac says he feared for his safety and worries about other lost work. In a statement of claim filed in February 2026 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice he seeks damages of 1.5 million from Google (US dollars in the Globe and Mail copy of the Canadian Press story, no currency stated in the CBC copy). None of its claims has been tested in court, and the claim says Google did not admit responsibility.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
Apr 2025United StatesUnidentified facial recognition system
Reporting from August 2025 says an NYPD facial recognition search of images from a February 2025 indecent exposure in Manhattan's Union Square produced a possible match to a man who did not fit the described suspect. The man was placed in a photo lineup, arrested in April 2025 and jailed for two days. Prosecutors dismissed the case in July 2025 after his public defenders showed he was misidentified. The man says the process of becoming a correctional officer 'kind of' froze after the arrest. The NYPD says it never arrests solely on a facial recognition match.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 29/09/2026
12 Mar 2025 to 15 Mar 2025AustraliaChatGPT
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
21 Sept 2026 to 25 Sept 2026FrancePangram AI-text detector
On 21 September 2026 an anonymous X account, Balance ton Claude, said it had run excerpts of Thélyson Orélien's debut novel C'était ça ou mourir through the American AI-detection software Pangram, with some passages scoring up to 100 per cent probability of AI generation. On 25 September the Académie Goncourt removed the novel from the first selection of sixteen books for its 2026 prize, stating that the work is 'in all likelihood very largely the product of an artificial intelligence', based on 'the convergent result of several analyses by researchers and journalists', and also citing plagiarism in older texts by the author published in Canada (at least one short story and articles), which do not concern the novel. Orélien, a 38-year-old Canadian-Haitian writer whose novel had won the Fnac novel prize, denies using AI and says its repetitions and certain rhythms reflect his linguistic and cultural world and may be misread by automated tools. His Montreal publisher Boréal suspended promotional activities, saying it could neither confirm nor refute the allegations. Essayist Samuel Fitoussi said he was one of the people behind the account. AI-detector reliability is contested in the coverage. In October the author acknowledged plagiarism in some of his earlier work while maintaining that no sentence of the novel was generated by a machine. On 17 October 2026 The Canadian Press, published by CBC, reported that Boréal confirmed he had ended an effort to compile evidence of how the novel was written; Boréal said at that point it would keep selling the book, that sales had slowed since the controversy began, and that it could not verify how the novel was written before it received the manuscript on 12 September 2025. A major Quebec bookstore chain reported no significant change in sales. On 21 October 2026 Boréal announced that it was ending its professional relationship with him and would not reprint the novel or publish any further books by him. It said an external analysis it commissioned of all working versions of the novel revealed traces of AI markers in the metadata of certain documents, and that it does not know to what extent AI was used. In a statement the previous week Orélien had said he used AI tools 'here and there' for research but that the text, structure and plot were his own.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 7 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 28/09/2026
19 Jun 2026 to 13 Aug 2026BrazilChatGPT and OpenAI moderation
BBC reporting describes a Brazilian man detained for 54 days after OpenAI reported messages to the FBI and Brazilian authorities. Police described a credible threat; he denied intending harm. A court released him without charges under protective conditions. The report did not include ChatGPT’s replies.
Core + contextual relations High reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/09/2026
Mar 2026Event location unknownUnidentified AI medical scribe
A patient who consented to having her first urology appointment transcribed by an artificial-intelligence scribe discovered, after her kidney-stone surgery in March 2026, that the post-operative letter her specialist sent to her GP stated she micro-dosed psychedelic mushrooms and that this could explain earlier bleeding around the kidneys. She says she has never taken mushrooms. She was receiving workers' compensation and feared that any mention of illegal drugs on her medical record could affect her case. After she complained, the urologist sent a letter of apology saying the practice takes documentation accuracy seriously, that she could not determine how the claim came to be included but that it appeared to be an error during the 'dictation or transcription process', that the correspondence had been corrected and that she would review how AI was used in her practice. The doctor did not answer ABC's questions about what changes had been made. Australia's practitioner regulator AHPRA told ABC that clinicians must check all AI-scribe output; the patient says it was clear her doctor had not. The account is a single ABC News report (14 August 2026) based on the patient's interview and the letters she received; the scribe product and the clinic's location are not named.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/09/2026
16 May 2026United StatesGemini (reported)
A Boca Raton, Florida father told WPBF, WPTV and ABC News that after his teenage daughters took a Lyft home from the beach (on Saturday 16 May 2026, according to ABC News), he was charged a $75 damage fee because the driver reported that the riders had left a mess. Lyft customer service told him the driver had sent pictures. One daughter pointed out a Gemini logo in the corner of the photo, which the family took as showing it was AI-generated. The father says Lyft then agreed, apologised and blocked the driver. Lyft's statements say it reviewed the rider's concerns, offered reimbursement and, per its later statements, permanently removed the driver; they do not say the photo was AI-generated.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Involving minors Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 17/09/2026
6 Aug 2026United KingdomFacewatch facial recognition
On 6 August 2026 Matt Arnold, a comedy promoter, was refused service at a self-service till in Sainsbury's East Dulwich store and escorted out by two managers, who cited an incident earlier in the week. He says a staff member told him he had been identified by the AI and that he saw a CCTV monitor alert with a red circle around his face as he left. Sainsbury's apologised the next day, said the cause was human error rather than the facial recognition technology, and paused its Facewatch system at the store while it investigates. Facewatch says a correct alert was sent and mishandled in store; the BBC reports Sainsbury's claim that staff targeted the wrong person after a separate flag. Whose face the system matched is unresolved.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement disputed · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 16/09/2026
2 Jun 2026 to 4 Jun 2026United KingdomGrok
In early June 2026, social media posts and the AI chatbot Grok falsely identified former Hampshire police constable Christi Hill as one of the 'primary officers shown' in bodycam footage of the December 2025 arrest of Henry Nowak, who died after being stabbed. Hill had left the force in April 2024 — more than a year before the murder — and says the misidentification stems from a national police bravery award photo being misattributed. After 'endless threats' and 'threats of violence' she is hiding in a safe house. BBC Verify separately obtained evidence that serving officer Tristan Parsons, also wrongly accused online, was not in the country at the time; the Home Secretary said a misidentified male officer had to move out of his home. Hampshire Constabulary confirmed an unrelated officer was misidentified and received death threats.
Contextual tracker case High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 15/09/2026
Mar 2017IrelandSimSimi
In late March 2017 the SimSimi chatbot app, which answers typed text with replies other users have taught it, topped Irish download charts while schools in the Republic of Ireland sent letters and text messages warning parents that pupils' names were being linked to insulting replies (The Irish Times, 26 March 2017). A parent told TheJournal.ie that she and other parents had searched their children's names and found vile comments on each, and that the company said her request would take 15 days to handle. A Dublin secondary teacher told the BBC that primary pupils who typed in their names received personal insults, and that a friend of her 15-year-old son found something mean every time he looked up his name, which hurt him a lot and left him very down. Police in County Down posted a warning on Facebook. From 29 March 2017 the app answered users in Ireland with "I do not talk in Ireland for a while", while remaining available in Northern Ireland. The South Korean developer did not respond to the outlets' requests for comment, and no inspected source says whether access was later restored.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Involving minors Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 7 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 12/01/2026