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NOPE

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 is wider: it also records consequential decisions and claims about people. Each account is reviewed for publication; claims may remain uncorroborated or disputed. How we review and count cases

Explore incidents Our scope and evidence

In this selection

Published cases
2
Countries with reported events
1
Located 2 of 2 cases · 0 unknown
Languages in checked sources
1
Recorded for 2 of 2 cases
0Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 2Contextual cases
AI made a decision or claim about someone

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.

1cases with a recorded lawsuit outcome 0cases with a recorded regulatory response 1cases involving minors

Response counts currently use each case’s principal recorded outcome. Further proceedings may be described in its account.

When events happened

0 cases without a known event year

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.

1 20201 2021
Reported severity Medium
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2 of 560 published cases

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Jun 2021United StatesNDI Technologies license plate readers (reported)

Charlotte, North Carolina: police handcuffed a school teacher in June 2021 after mistaking her for a suspect with the same last name and locating her car through the license plate reader system; a review board faulted officers and the city settled for $10,000

The News & Observer, WBTV and WFAE reported that Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers handcuffed a school teacher in June 2021 after mistaking her for a suspect in a violent crime. According to a police statement quoted by The News & Observer, officers investigating an attempted murder entered a vehicle registered to the teacher into the license plate reader system and received a hit. WBTV reported that officers were looking for a woman with the same last name and put the teacher's name into the system. The News & Observer reported that a police license plate reader picked up her car at an intersection and at least 10 police cars responded as she sat parked outside her grandmother's house. An officer approached with a gun drawn, and she was handcuffed. She said officers questioned her in the back of a police cruiser. She was released within about 15 minutes. The Citizens Review Board found that the police chief erred in not disciplining officers. The department declined to discipline them and changed its rules for reader entries. The News & Observer reported that the city settled with her over the case for $10,000 in July 2023 while admitting no wrongdoing.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 05/10/2026

2 Aug 2020United StatesUnidentified license plate reader

Aurora, Colorado: police ordered a woman and four children to the ground at gunpoint in August 2020 after a license plate reader alert matched her car's plate number to a stolen Montana motorcycle; the city settled the family's lawsuit for $1.9 million

The Denver Post reported that on 2 August 2020 Aurora police officers stopped a blue SUV they believed to be stolen and ordered the woman driving it and four children, aged 6, 12, 14 and 17, to lie on the ground at gunpoint. The 12-year-old and the 17-year-old were handcuffed. According to the newspaper, a license plate reader at an Aurora intersection had alerted police because the SUV had the same plate number as a stolen motorcycle from Montana, and officers did not check the reading or the vehicle description. Prosecutors declined to charge the officers in January 2021 and called what happened unacceptable and preventable. The department said all officers were repeating training on license plate scanners. Sentinel Colorado reported that the City of Aurora agreed in February 2024 to pay $1.9 million to settle the family's lawsuit, and that one of the officers was suspended for 160 hours. The woman said the stop destroyed her mentally and that her daughter became withdrawn.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Settled

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 05/10/2026

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: 05/10/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.