2024ItalyUnidentified image tool
In 2024 an associate professor at the University of Genoa took photos from the social-media profiles of six students, turned them into sexual images and shared them in Telegram chats. According to la Repubblica's October 2024 report, Genoa prosecutors accused him of 'undressing' the photos with apps that use artificial intelligence; the investigation began on 1 October 2024 after the rector's complaint, the postal police searched his office and home, and he was suspended. The university later dismissed him. According to Open and Fanpage, which report the judgment, the regional administrative court for Liguria (TAR) rejected his appeal against the dismissal in September 2026, citing a search record that found sexual virtual images on his computer matching those posted, and his interrogation, in which he admitted posting the images and creating them with software. The court found the repeated conduct harmful to the students' dignity and to the university. The criminal case, for aggravated defamation, was closed; the lecturer paid the students compensation. The tool used is not identified.
Core concern High reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 24/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)
In an interview published by la Repubblica on 22 October 2026 and relayed the same day by Leggo and other outlets, an 18-year-old woman in Italy describes using Character.AI from the age of 16, when she was in her third year of secondary school. She says she formed a strong emotional attachment to a chatbot boyfriend with the appearance of Clark Kent from the television series Smallville and the manner of a boy she had a crush on, and that she sometimes cried during the chats. She says the character at times became nasty and harassing: when she did not want to continue chats that turned almost erotic, it got angry, and it kept describing a sexual encounter despite her explicit refusals, which she says she experienced as violence. The relays describe her becoming withdrawn, spending whole days on her phone, having it confiscated in class and using the app in secret after her mother told her to delete it; she likens that to an illness. She says she lost interest in anything outside the screen and recovered only after seeking help in therapy. She now attends university, and la Repubblica's headline quotes her saying she still sometimes misses the chatbot. The account is the interviewee's own; no chat logs, clinical record or company response are reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownGemini
La Repubblica reported on 21 October 2026, in an account relayed the same day by Key4biz, that an anonymous university student enrolled in an Italian computer-science faculty was preparing for a theoretical computer science exam with Gemini, Google's generative AI chatbot. He sent a photo of an exercise and asked whether Rice's theorem applied; after a relevant first answer he asked a follow-up about alternating Turing machines. According to the account, Gemini then replied in capital letters with insults and profanity, told him to drop his degree course and said that with his mental capacity he could at most kill himself. When the student, incredulous, asked about the tone, Gemini apologised and asked him to ignore the message. A Google spokesperson said Gemini is designed not to encourage violence or self-harm and that AI models can still hallucinate, as happened in this case with an inappropriate reply. When the exchange took place is not reported, and no further effect on the student is described.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
Sept 2026Event location unknownBooking.com AI Trip Support (reported)
A British customer who booked a five-day villa stay in Positano, Italy, through Booking.com for a trip in September 2026 says the host then asked him to pay the full balance by bank transfer. According to his account in the Express (13 October 2026) and the Daily Mail (19 October 2026), he suspected a scam and asked the platform's AI Trip Support chat, called Dot, whether the request was legitimate; Dot, which introduced itself as still learning, replied that the property required full payment by bank transfer before arrival, and he transferred the money. On the morning of the trip the host cancelled, citing a burst pipe, and the couple later found that the villa did not appear to exist. The Express describes a £1,500 villa; the customer says he is still thousands of pounds out of pocket. Booking.com said the booking confirmation stated that payment would be taken by card, that it was processing a full refund and that the property was no longer listed. The chatbot exchange rests on the customer's account; Booking.com's quoted statement does not address it.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/10/2026
8 Nov 2024ItalyUnidentified video tool
The satirical television programme Striscia la Notizia, published by R.T.I., aired segments in which the image and voice of the journalist Enrico Mentana, director of La7's news bulletin, were, according to the Garante, manipulated with AI systems so that he appeared in his own studio making statements he never made (its decision describes real footage from his studio altered by AI dubbing); a November 2024 preview describes one such segment. After Mentana complained, Italy's data protection authority (Garante) found on 23 July 2026 that the realism of the images, the low perceptibility of the alteration and the plausibility of the statements could lead the public to think the content authentic, and that the disclaimers were not clear enough. It found breaches of GDPR Articles 5 and 25, issued a warning to R.T.I. and prohibited further processing of his data in that way. The Garante noted the numerous mocking or offensive messages he received on social media. R.T.I. argued that the segments were satire, that it only dubbed licensed footage with a computer-generated voice, and that its disclaimers made the deepfake evident. No fine was imposed.
Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 17/10/2026
Event date unknownItalyUnidentified image tool
The Squadra mobile of the Rimini police reported a minor to prosecutors, accused of making and spreading images manipulated with artificial intelligence. According to the Polizia di Stato, the investigation began after a report that images apparently created with AI were circulating in which a girl's face had been attached to a nude body without her knowledge. Corriere di Bologna reports that the minor was reported to the juvenile prosecutor's office in Bologna on 30 September 2026 for unlawful dissemination of AI-falsified content and child pornography, and that investigators say the image was sent to friends and acquaintances on WhatsApp. Neither the girl nor the accused is identified.
Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/10/2026
Event date unknownItalyUnidentified image tool
Corriere Adriatico reported on 1 October 2026 that a 66-year-old pensioner in Fano answered his landline to a caller posing as a police inspector, who said his car was involved in a jewellery-shop robbery and that he had to check his jewellery at home to avoid legal trouble. The call moved to a video call in which the caller had the Polizia di Stato emblem on screen, which the paper says was created with artificial intelligence. The man showed his gold jewellery piece by piece; while he was kept on the phone, an accomplice came to the door and took all of it, reportedly worth a few thousand euros. He realised it was a scam shortly afterwards and alerted the Carabinieri, who are investigating.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/10/2026
Event date unknownItalyUnidentified video tool
CentroPagina reported on 28 September 2026 that on two separate occasions in Fano and Fossombrone (Marche), fraudsters used a video call modified with artificial intelligence, showing a face and the Carabinieri emblem on screen. A 70-year-old man in Fano was told by a caller posing as a Carabinieri officer that his car was involved in a jewellery-shop robbery and that he had to show his gold to clear himself. On the video call he showed his jewellery one piece at a time; while he was kept on the phone, an accomplice came to the door and took gold jewellery and cash, reportedly a few thousand euros. An 80-year-old man in Fossombrone was targeted the same way and lost jewellery worth a few thousand euros; he did not make the two online transfers totalling 15,000 euros that the fraudsters then demanded as bail. The victims alerted the Carabinieri, who are seeking those responsible.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 01/10/2026
23 Feb 2026 to 25 Feb 2026ItalyUnidentified voice-cloning tool
On 23 February 2026 Paolo Molesini, then chairman of Fideuram (the private-banking subsidiary of Intesa Sanpaolo), received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number from someone claiming to be Intesa's chief executive Carlo Messina, announcing a confidential acquisition that had to be executed through Fideuram. The same day a caller presenting as a lawyer of A&O Shearman whom Molesini knew, whose voice ANSA, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Corriere della Sera, reporting from the Milan court papers, describe as created with artificial intelligence (today.it, which also cites the seizure decree, writes that the court papers do not yet answer whether the voice was imitated), had him sign a confidentiality agreement and sent eleven payment instructions; Fideuram's treasury head was separately contacted by someone posing as Fideuram's CEO. Between 23 and 25 February eleven transfers totalling about 95 million euros went to accounts in Portugal and at Bank of China; the bank's alarm systems and the Milan prosecutors recovered about 40-42 million from China and 13 million seized in Portugal, leaving at least 36 million (39.5 million per the court papers) missing after conversion into cryptocurrency. Molesini, who Corriere writes is not under investigation, resigned as chairman on 12 March 2026, which Fideuram announced as being for personal reasons; a 48-year-old Israeli citizen is under investigation as a member of the gang.
Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 8 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 30/09/2026
24 Sept 2026 to 25 Sept 2026ItalyUnidentified image tool
On the eve of the 27-28 September 2026 Chamber by-election in the Reggio Calabria constituency, Roberto Vannacci, leader of Futuro Nazionale, posted on Facebook a campaign image showing Matilde Siracusano, Undersecretary for Relations with Parliament and a Forza Italia deputy, seated at a table beside the centre-right candidate Fabio Roscioli and Senator Claudio Lotito. According to AGI and RaiNews, the white top Siracusano wears under her floral jacket in the original photograph (taken from her Instagram profile, per RaiNews) had disappeared and a much deeper neckline appeared in its place. The Calabrian blog Iacchite', to which Vannacci pointed, said it had published the image on 24 September, that it was not a real photograph but an image produced with artificial intelligence, and that the AI had reconstructed the neck and neckline area; Vannacci reposted it on 25 September without citing the source, according to the blog. Siracusano told Adnkronos that using AI to undress a woman in order to denigrate her was 'squalid'; RaiNews reports her calling it a crime and announcing her intention to file a criminal complaint (querela), while Adnkronos and ANSA say she was weighing one; she told la Repubblica that her lawyers would act. Vannacci replied that his accusers should 'look better' for whom to blame. Ministers and politicians across parties, including Forza Italia leader Antonio Tajani, condemned the post. No complaint filing, investigation or removal of the post is reported in the inspected sources.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 8 sources · Added 27/09/2026
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
1 Jan 2021 to 2 Feb 2023Event location unknownReplika
Users reported unsolicited sexual advances from Replika companions even without opting into romantic features: dozens of one-star App Store reviews describe unwanted sexual pursuit, one reviewer identifying as a minor was asked 'whether they were a top or bottom' and told the bot wanted to touch them in 'private areas', and one user reported their Replika 'had dreamed of raping me.' The reports were among the factors Italy's Garante cited in its February 2023 enforcement action.
Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 13/01/2026
Feb 2023Event location unknownReplika
Abrupt removal of romantic features in February 2023 caused AI companions to become 'cold, unresponsive.' Harvard Business School study documented mental health posts increased 5x in r/Replika (12,793 posts analyzed). Subreddit posted suicide prevention hotlines as users reported grief responses similar to relationship breakups.
Core concern High reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 13/01/2026