Feb 2021United StatesGoogle CSAM image classifier
In February 2021 a San Francisco father took photos of his toddler son's medical condition after a nurse asked for photos before a video consultation; the doctor used them to diagnose the problem and prescribe antibiotics. The New York Times reported in August 2022 that when the photos were backed up from his Android phone to Google's servers, Google's artificial-intelligence tool for recognising never-before-seen child abuse images flagged them. Two days after the photos were taken his Google account was disabled for 'harmful content', which cost him more than a decade of email, contacts and photos and, through Google Fi, his phone number. Google reported him to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the San Francisco police obtained search warrants for his account; the investigator concluded that no crime had occurred. Google refused to reinstate the account after two appeals, the second with the police report, and later notified him that it was being permanently deleted. The Times reported a second father in Houston whose photos of his toddler, taken at a paediatrician's request, were also flagged; his Gmail account was disabled in the middle of buying a house, Houston police questioned and cleared him, and he did not get the account back. Google said it stood by its decisions and that its reviewers had found a further video in the San Francisco father's account that it considered problematic.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
The Martin County Sheriff's Office in Florida said on 22 October 2026 that a man serving a 25-year sentence for child sexual abuse offences used a contraband phone in his cell at Martin Correctional Institution to communicate with a child through social media and to create, with artificial intelligence, thousands of sexually explicit images depicting the victim of his original case. Detectives had received an Internet Crimes Against Children tip the previous month about a phone downloading large amounts of child sexual abuse material; prison staff recovered the phone. Sheriff John Budensiek said the man was 'continuing, essentially, to revictimize our victim' from prison, that the victim had been notified, and that investigators do not believe the AI images of the original victim were among the images he traded with others. The sheriff also said he sent an AI-generated nude image of a man to young girls on Snapchat, none of whom appeared to engage. He is expected to face additional charges (CBS12). The allegations are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified video tool
The Lake County Sheriff's Office in Illinois says that on 25 March 2026 a man from unincorporated Antioch told deputies a stranger had handed him a phone containing sexual videos of a young child he identified as a relative, and that he later admitted the story was fabricated. According to the sheriff's office, investigators found that he had taken photographs of the child and the child's mother and used an online service to generate sexually explicit videos from those images, including videos depicting the child, and a forensic analysis of his phone found further AI-generated videos exploiting the child and her mother. He was charged on 1 April 2026 with five counts of producing child pornography and is detained awaiting trial; the child was taken into protective custody. The service is not named, and the charges are allegations.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 11/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesDesire AI (reported)
Police in Shawnee, Oklahoma, say a local man used an artificial-intelligence app to create child sexual abuse images from photographs of children in his community, and Pottawatomie County prosecutors have charged him with five felony counts of possessing and creating child pornography. According to News On 6 (28 September 2026), the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crimes Against Children task force was tipped through a national database in August, Shawnee police executed a search warrant, and police say they found more than 200 child sexual abuse images and videos on two phones, about 100 of which appeared to have been created through an AI app. Court documents cited by the outlet say police identified some of the young victims through selfies they had posted on social media, and investigators believe one photo used was of a neighbour, taken from the man's front porch. KFOR reported on 6 October 2026 that court documents say he admitted using an app called "Desire AI", that a juvenile's online selfie was turned into sexually explicit AI images, and that a photo he took of a mother and her young daughter was altered to make both appear naked. The account rests on the police and OSBI statements and the charging documents as reported; the total number of children depicted is not stated.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 07/10/2026
Event date unknownFinlandUnidentified image tool
Southeast Finland Police (Kaakkois-Suomen poliisi) opened a preliminary investigation in August 2026 into a case in which a minor boy in Lappeenranta is suspected of using AI to create nude images of several underage girls; Ilta-Sanomat reported that he is suspected of using social media photos of girls he knew, while the investigator told the paper that police could not yet comment on the method. On 25 August the lead investigator told Yle there were tens of victims, possibly more than a hundred, all from the Lappeenranta area; on 28 August police said the number of complainants had proved significantly smaller than first estimated, without giving a figure. Police are investigating the case as aggravated distribution of an image depicting a child sexually, an offence that also covers making such images, and said they were not aware that the AI images had been spread or sold onward. Student welfare professionals offered conversation and crisis support to young people in the town. Police also said the suspect had been threatened and harassed and that someone had tried to break into the suspect's home. The AI tool is not identified; victims and suspect are not named. Yle reported on 27 October 2026 that police had identified 45 victims with certainty, up from 37 about a month earlier; the detective inspector estimated that the final number could rise to fifty and said police aimed to complete the preliminary investigation by the end of the year.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 02/10/2026
Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified image tool
ABC News (2 October 2026) reports that WA District Court Judge Belinda Lonsdale sentenced a 41-year-old man to four and a half years in prison, with eligibility for parole after two and a half years, for creating child exploitation material with AI. He had pleaded guilty to 26 charges including indecent recording and producing, creating and possessing child exploitation material, and to five charges of possessing indecent or obscene articles, and was fined $2,500 for the offensive material charges. The judge said he was guilty of incorporating images of real victims and manipulating their images using AI tools, and that the claim that AI-generated material involved no actual abuse was not mitigating because images of real children were used; ABC reports he used AI to manipulate images of children from social media. He sent sexual material through encrypted messaging apps to two co-accused and to a covert police operative, and a police raid on his Wanneroo home found a large amount of child exploitation material. The children are not identified and their number is not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 02/10/2026
Mar 2026CanadaUnidentified image tool
The Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) Internet Child Exploitation unit announced on 17 June 2026 that two 14-year-old boys at an Edmonton junior high school had been charged on 1 June with making and possessing child sexual exploitation materials and voyeurism. Police allege the boys took photos of girls at their school without consent and from the girls' social media accounts and used AI software to sexualise them; several students were identified as victims and police said the number could be more than ten pending forensic review. A teacher reported the matter to police in late March 2026 after students complained. Police said the evidence so far indicates the images were shared between the two boys rather than more widely, but that word of their existence spread through the school. The lead investigator said the girls were left with intense shame and embarrassment and that some are now too scared to post on social media. The software has not been identified; the school and the accused are not named to protect the victims. CBC, Global News, CTV News and The Canadian Press covered the release and news conference.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/10/2026
Event date unknownCanadaUnidentified image and video tool
Alberta's police child-exploitation unit (ALERT ICE) charged a man in September 2026 with making child sexual abuse material. It alleges he used AI applications to sexualise photos and videos of numerous children known to him, taken from open social media accounts. Investigators were still identifying the children, he was released under court-imposed conditions, and the allegations remain untested in court.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
A Missouri man is charged with sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child sexual abuse material after a cybertip from a company operating a generative AI chatbot. According to the police probable cause statement as reported by a local newspaper, he told officers he uploaded photographs of children to an AI generator to undress them. He pleaded not guilty; the tool and the number of children are not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownGrok
A survivor who was sexually abused as a preschool-aged child and now sues individually under the pseudonym Jane Doe 1, and whose abuse images have circulated online since the early 2000s as a series known to NCMEC, sued xAI on 26 August 2026 in the Northern District of California. Her complaint alleges that those known images were part of the dataset xAI used for Grok and that Grok generated new abuse images depicting her; her lawyers say the Canadian Centre for Child Protection used the series' hash fingerprints to identify AI-generated images of her on X. The complaint says each new image caused her a new injury. It seeks damages under Masha's Law for a proposed class of people whose childhood images Grok altered into abuse material. The complaint does not say when the images of her were made or who prompted them. xAI did not respond to requests for comment, and no court has ruled on the allegations.
Core concern High reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited KingdomUnidentified image tool
The Colchester Gazette (24 September 2026, also carried by other Newsquest titles) reports that a 39-year-old man from Colchester admitted at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court three counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing an extreme pornographic image. Police had seized two mobile devices in a raid on his address the previous year, holding nearly 2,000 indecent images of children. The prosecutor said he had created 'deepfake sexually explicit images of people known to the defendant', taking photos from Facebook and other social-media accounts and using AI to create new images; some of the children were as young as 12 and nine and had been edited to look as young as five and six. Magistrates declined jurisdiction and he was bailed to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on 26 October 2026. The children are not identified and how many real children were depicted is not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image and video tool
The Sumner County (18th Judicial District) District Attorney's Office said a 30-year-old Portland, Tennessee man was sentenced in Sumner County Criminal Court in September 2026 to 30 years in the Tennessee Department of Correction, to be served without probation, parole or early release. According to the prosecutors, he used artificial intelligence to place the faces of children onto images and videos of nude people and of people engaged in sexual acts, then exchanged the material with a Canadian resident for real child sexual abuse material. Canadian authorities found messages and material connected to him after arresting the person he was communicating with and alerted US law enforcement; a joint investigation by Portland police, Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and the TBI led to his arrest in November 2025. He was also charged with tampering with evidence after investigators said he deleted material before officers entered his home to execute a search warrant. The children whose faces were used are not identified, their number is not reported, and the reports do not say which AI tool was used or which offences he was convicted of.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/09/2026
Sept 2026GermanyUnidentified image tool
The Oldenburg-Stadt police inspectorate said on 22 September 2026 that in the preceding days numerous messages had been sent through one or more student accounts on the email servers of Oldenburg schools. The messages contained, among other things, deepfakes (manipulated depictions of children and young people); on an initial assessment some of these could constitute the offence of distributing child or youth sexual abuse material, and some messages contained threats of violence and calls for recipients to harm themselves. According to dpa, students and parents reported the incidents to the police, and dpa, reporting a police spokesman, describes the images as made with artificial intelligence (the written police statement calls them deepfakes, manipulated depictions, without naming AI). Investigators are examining whether unknown persons gained unauthorised access to the accounts; first digital traces were secured and the police are working with the affected schools. RND reports that the accounts were on the IServ school platform, whose provider said it had no access to the messages and believed the incident was limited to Oldenburg. The exact number of schools (the police refer to 'the affected schools', plural), messages, depicted children and recipients, are not reported. On 28 September 2026 the police said a suspect had been identified: a juvenile who, in the investigation so far, admitted the offences he is accused of. The proceedings are conducted by the Aurich public prosecutor's specialised office for violent, pornographic or otherwise youth-endangering content, and the police give no further details about the suspect to protect him.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
According to the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted the case as conflict prosecutor, the investigation began in December 2024 when a Gilmer High School student told a school resource officer that a vendor who refilled drink machines on campus had asked her through a social media app to send him pictures. The Gilmer County Sheriff's Office arrested him in January 2025 and searched his devices, car and home. Prosecutors say he downloaded photographs of minors from social media and used AI applications and bots to alter them so the children appeared nude or engaged in sexual activity, and that the material related to more than 150 underage victims in Georgia and other states, many of them Gilmer County students. A Cobb County senior judge found him guilty on 13 August 2026 of 118 counts of sexual exploitation of children and on 2 September 2026, after 19 victim impact statements, sentenced him to 60 years with 40 to serve in prison. Separately, the parents of eight female students aged 12 to 17 sued him, Pepsi Beverage Co. and Pepsi-Cola Sales and Distribution in a suit reported on 28 February 2025, alleging the companies reinstated him to the same school route after students complained that he was photographing them; USA Herald reported the negligence suit again on 26 September 2026 and said Pepsi had not yet responded publicly. The AI tools are not named and the court and status of the civil suit are not reported.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 27/09/2026
8 Dec 2025 to 18 Feb 2026Event location unknownGrok
xAI filed a civil complaint in July 2026 alleging that a South Carolina user, between December 2025 and February 2026, uploaded non-sexual photographs of numerous adults and minors and used Grok to alter them or generate new sexualised images and videos without their consent, resubmitting prompts after Grok refused. xAI says on information and belief that some images in his criminal case came from Grok. The state attorney general had announced his arrest on three second-degree and five third-degree counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in a release that does not mention AI. The civil and criminal accusations are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/08/2026
22 Apr 2026 to 10 Jun 2026United StatesGrok
Arkansas criminal and civil cases allege that a photographer used children’s portrait photographs to generate sexual images with Grok. The accused pleaded not guilty and the criminal case continues. Two families’ federal suits were voluntarily dismissed. A federal complaint filed on 13 October 2026 in the Western District of Arkansas alleges that local police told a child’s parents that Grok was generating sexual images and videos of her from real photographs. On 21 October 2026 a mother sued the photographer and two xAI companies in an Arkansas county circuit court; KNWA reports that the complaint says federal agents told her some of the photographs he had taken of her young daughter had been modified into AI-generated sexual abuse material.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 13 sources, 10 underlying accounts · Added 03/08/2026
Apr 2026 to Jun 2026United StatesUnidentified image tool
Illinois police and prosecutors charged a middle-school teacher in July 2026 with eight felony child-pornography counts. They say a forensic examination of his phone found photographs of students, taken at school, that had been altered with an AI app into nude or explicit images, and prosecutors told a detention hearing the app was on the phone. A judge ordered him detained and the school board dismissed him; the charges are unproven.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 8 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 06/07/2026
Mar 2026ItalyUnidentified image tool
Reports published on 14 March 2026, carrying a Postal Police account of an investigation coordinated by the Catania prosecutor's office, describe the arrest, in flagrante delicto, of a 58-year-old collaboratore scolastico (school assistant) at a secondary school (scuola media) in the province of Catania, on suspicion of possessing a large quantity of child sexual abuse material. The preliminary investigations judge validated the arrest and placed him under house arrest. The investigation began with a report by the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to the Postal Police's national centre in Rome, forwarded to Catania, whose cyber specialists identified the man; a search ordered by the prosecutor found images and videos including child victims and bestiality. Investigators also found on his devices digital photographs of underage female students taken inside the school where he worked, some without the girls' knowledge, which had been altered with artificial-intelligence programs found on the seized devices to make the minors appear naked ('deep-nude') and to place them beside the suspect's own image, as if photographed together. Analysis of the devices continued to establish whether the manipulated images were distributed online and whether there are further victims. The number of students depicted is not reported. No later development was found on 2026-09-22.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 14/06/2026
10 Mar 2025JapanUnidentified image tool
On 4 June 2026 the Nagoya District Court sentenced a 35-year-old former Nagoya municipal elementary-school teacher to three years and six months in prison. Prosecutors had sought six years. He was one of seven current and former teachers from five prefectures charged over a group chat in which members shared secretly filmed images of girls. His offences included secret filming and sharing, and, under the child-pornography law, possessing two generative-AI images showing two real girls apparently naked. According to the police and the judgment summary, he sent photos of the girls from the school where he taught to another member of the group, who made the images on an AI image-editing website. The teacher kept them on his phone, and one was shared in the chat. The judge found the images realistic enough to be mistaken for photographs of the girls. Jiji called it the first case in Japan applying the law to possession of AI-generated sexual deepfakes, and Kyodo called it apparently the first such court finding. A lawyer and a former judge argue the law was stretched.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 9 sources, 8 underlying accounts · Added 14/06/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified image tool
In a release of 29 May 2026, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) said a man had been arrested and charged under the state's Senate Bill 20 with possession of computer-generated child sexual abuse material. DPS said FBI agents who examined his devices in April 2026 found more than 900 AI-generated sexual images and videos of children, as well as non-AI abuse images, and that investigators determined he had taken photos from public pages affiliated with South Texas schools and used AI tools to “nudify” the children. DPS said about 30 child victims had been identified and that the FBI was coordinating victim services. The tools are not named. These are law-enforcement allegations that had not been tested in court, and no later court report was found by 25 October 2026.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 03/06/2026