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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
13
Countries with reported events
8
Located 11 of 13 cases · 2 unknown
Languages in checked sources
7
Recorded for 13 of 13 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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13 of 1101 published cases

2024Event location unknownGemini (reported)

Brazilian court orders Google to pay R$20,000 after its AI falsely named a businessman as owner of a betting site, leaving him blamed for its scams

A civil court in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro state, ordered Google Brasil to pay a businessman R$20,000 in moral damages in a sentence dated 12 May 2025. The judge found it undisputed that the company's artificial intelligence had pointed to him in searches as the owner of a gambling platform called 7 Games, with which he had no connection, as the company register showed. The court found that the false information damaged his reputation: he was being held responsible for scams on the betting platform and received threats by email from its customers. The court had earlier granted an injunction to remove the association, and the sentence confirmed it. Google argued that it does not host the material shown in its results and only organises pages available on the web; the judge held Google responsible because the information came from its own platform rather than from a linked page. Conjur, a legal-news site, identifies the tool as Gemini and reports that the association began after an interview in which he recommended seven games; the sentence names no product. Whether Google appealed is not reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 02/11/2026

Mar 2024United Kingdom, NigeriaUnidentified AI tool

UK tribunal strikes off a dietitian it found used AI to answer clinical questions in a remote NHS job interview; she denied using AI

A dietitian on the UK register who was in Nigeria at the time was interviewed online in March 2024 for an entry-level oncology dietitian post at an NHS hospital in Surrey, according to reports of a Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service decision. The reports say the interviewers noticed that she repeatedly asked for clinical questions to be repeated and then gave fluent, textbook answers while her eyes moved as if reading from another screen, and that all of them came to the view she was using artificial intelligence; a case study she then completed was also judged AI-assisted, and her answers were later run through an AI check with striking similarities. She denied using AI, saying she habitually repeated questions and was looking at her router. The tribunal panel found that she used AI in the interview, that this was cheating and dishonesty, and ordered that she be struck off the register, with an interim suspension of 18 months during which she may appeal. Nigerian outlets, citing the Daily Mail, said the tool was ChatGPT; the local report describes it only as AI. The decision date and any appeal are not stated in the sources read.

Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 01/11/2026

2024Event location unknownNotebookLM

Former NPR host alleges Google's NotebookLM AI podcast voice imitates his own; California judge lets his publicity claims proceed

Former NPR Morning Edition co-host David Greene alleges that the default male AI host voice in Google's NotebookLM Audio Overviews, a feature introduced in September 2024 that turns uploaded documents into podcast-style conversations, imitates his voice and speaking habits and was used to market the product without his permission. He told NPR that in fall 2024 friends and colleagues messaged him that it sounded like him, and that listening to it felt creepy. He sued Google in Santa Clara County Superior Court on 23 January 2026; the complaint cites listeners and a forensic voice-recognition firm. Google calls the allegation baseless and says it hired a professional actor and built the voice around him. In October 2026 Judge Shella Deen overruled Google's demurrer to all four causes of action, while stating that whether the voice was made from Greene's recordings or from another source that resembles him is a factual question still to be decided.

Core concern Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 30/10/2026

30 Apr 2024BraziliFood facial recognition check

Brasília labour court orders iFood to pay delivery worker who says its face check flagged his own photos as another person and got him banned; iFood appeals

A delivery worker in Brazil's Federal District who had worked for the iFood app for about three years says he was banned from the platform in April 2024 shortly after completing the app's daily facial recognition check. iFood support told him another person had tried to access his account; when he asked to see that person's photos, they were his own. G1 reports that the only difference from his registration photo was his hair, which he was growing out. In a judgment reported in June 2025, a Brasília labour judge, applying a default because iFood had not filed a defence in time, accepted as true that the contract was suspended through iFood's fault, that he suffered financial and psychological losses, and that the facial recognition tool had a racist failure, and ordered iFood to pay R$60,000 in moral damages. iFood denies that its facial recognition procedure analyses racial characteristics and has appealed. The account was restored during the case. No appeal ruling has been reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 27/10/2026

May 2024ItalyUnidentified speech-to-text tool

Genoa corruption inquiry: press reports say speech-to-text software turned a suspect's 'lawful financing' into 'unlawful' in his interrogation transcript

In May 2024 a businessman questioned as a suspect in the Genoa prosecutors' inquiry into alleged bribes to the president of the Liguria region was recorded in the official transcript of his interrogation before the preliminary-investigations judge as saying that the president wanted 'finanziamenti illeciti' (unlawful financing). According to Corriere della Sera, on receiving the transcript he wrote to the judge to contest it, saying he had said 'finanziamenti leciti' (lawful financing); his lawyer said the legally valid handwritten record did not contain the word. Il Post reports that the passage had been highlighted in the headlines of many newspapers in the following days as confirming the prosecutors' accusations, and that a second hearing of the audio was needed to settle it. La Repubblica reported on 27 May 2024 that, at an ad hoc hearing, the businessman confirmed he had said 'leciti', with the prosecutor's agreement according to his lawyer, and the judge took note; it wrote that the fault appears to lie with the automatic software that transcribes words spoken in court. Il Post reports that checks found the error was not human and that the transcript had been produced by speech-to-text software. The software is not named.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 25/10/2026

13 Apr 2024BrazilUnidentified facial recognition system

Aracaju (Brazil): facial recognition falsely matched a football fan to a wanted man; police led him from the stands and the state suspended the system

During the half-time interval of the Sergipe state football championship final at the Batistão stadium in Aracaju on 13 April 2024, military police took a personal trainer from the stands to a police room after the stadium's facial recognition system flagged him as a man with an open arrest warrant; he was searched and questioned and released once police confirmed he was not the person sought (G1, his lawyer and the military police). Sergipe's governor publicly regretted 'the failure of the facial recognition tool' and suspended its use until a new protocol was adopted. In June 2024 the man sued the state for 550,000 reais in moral damages; the state argued that the Aracaju municipality, not the state, had contracted the system. In December 2025 the judge rejected that preliminary objection, according to Mangue Jornalismo, which read the court file. No final judgment is reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 24/10/2026

7 Jun 2024NetherlandsChatGPT

Dutch sub-district judge used ChatGPT to estimate solar-panel lifespan and power prices in a neighbour dispute, then rejected the homeowner's damages claim

A homeowner in the Netherlands sued his neighbour, whose permitted roof extension shaded his solar panels, claiming more than 21,000 euros for lost yield and investment. In a judgment of 7 June 2024 (ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2024:3636), the sub-district judge of the Rechtbank Gelderland, sitting in Nijmegen, held that the neighbour had to bear half of the damage and then calculated the damage, estimating the average lifespan of solar panels from 2009 and the current average electricity price partly with the help of ChatGPT, as the judgment states. Using a lifespan of 27.5 years, about 15 remaining years and a price of 0.30 euros per kWh, the judge put the yield loss at about 2,250 euros and the maximum damage at 3,323.40 euros; half of that was less than the 3,300 euros the neighbour had offered, so the claim was rejected and the homeowner, who had refused the offer, received nothing and was ordered to pay costs. On the neighbour's counterclaim, the judge assumed, again partly with ChatGPT, that insulation material the homeowner had thrown into water was no longer usable, and ordered him to pay damages of 2,619.02 euros in total. The judgment does not say what was asked or answered, and whether it was appealed is not reported.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Lawsuit Dismissed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

Jul 2024South KoreaUnidentified image tool

Incheon high-school student jailed for AI deepfake nude composites of his teachers posted online; a civil court later orders him to pay one teacher damages

In July 2024 a high-school student in Incheon, South Korea, composited the faces of two female teachers at his school and of others, including an academy senior and an instructor, onto nude photos and posted them on social media, according to the charges as reported by Yonhap, the Hankyoreh, the JoongAng Ilbo and the Kyunghyang Shinmun, which describe the technique as AI-based deepfake technology. He had also secretly photographed teachers in class. He was expelled after a teachers' rights committee hearing. On 27 August 2025 the Incheon District Court gave him an indeterminate prison term of one year to one year six months and took him into custody; the court said that as a result the victimised teacher had left teaching and had not returned. On 19 December 2025, after he had turned adult, the appeal division raised the sentence to three years, calling the offence close to 'character assassination' and the teachers' mental shock considerable; OBS reports the sentence is final. On 21 October 2026, according to the Incheon Teachers' Union, a civil judge at the Incheon District Court ordered him, now 20, to pay one teacher 17.7 million won of the roughly 72 million won she claimed.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources · Added 21/10/2026

2024United StatesUnidentified voice-cloning tool (suspected)

Florida: judge suspended for sharing, as a 2024 candidate, a fabricated call of justices the judicial watchdog says was likely computer-manipulated or AI-made

While campaigning in 2024 for a Broward County court seat, Lauren Peffer, now a county judge, sought the endorsement of the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial board. Asked to back her claim of an image crisis in Florida's judiciary, she cited a self-published book by a fired employee of the Ninth Judicial Circuit and supplied a recording purportedly of a phone call about the book between Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, Justice Renatha Francis and the circuit's chief judge, Lisa Munyon. The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission's notice of formal charges, filed in May 2025, said the recording was fabricated, likely using computer manipulation or generative AI, and that while the voices resembled those of the participants, the manner of speech, tone and much of the content were objectively unrealistic. The notice said she had shared it despite clear evidence of its inauthenticity and had perpetuated a false perception of illegal, unethical or immoral conduct by the justices, a chief judge and others in the judicial branch. Peffer apologised, said the content was created by a third party with whom she had no ties, and testified that she could not explain why she had thought it valid. According to Bloomberg Law, the Florida Supreme Court on 9 October 2026 suspended her for 30 days and fined her $10,000, saying her conduct undermined public confidence in the judiciary by implicating sitting justices; the two justices whose voices were faked recused. Who made the recording, and with what tool, is not reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 12/10/2026

Mar 2024 to May 2025United StatesOtter Notetaker

United States: seven people who say they had no Otter account allege its AI Notetaker recorded calls without consent; a judge let core privacy claims proceed

Seven people in California, Illinois and Washington state are suing Otter.ai in a consolidated class action in the Northern District of California. Each says another meeting participant used Otter's AI Notetaker on a Zoom or Microsoft Teams call they joined, and that Otter recorded, transcribed and stored their conversation without their consent; six of them date their calls between March 2024 and May 2025. They say they were not Otter account holders. The calls they describe include a medical consultation, meetings with a financial professional and work discussions. They allege that Otter keeps the recordings and uses them to train its speech-recognition models, that it captured voiceprints of the Illinois plaintiffs, and one of them says learning of the recording left him frustrated, embarrassed and stressed. On 13 August 2026 the court found that the alleged interception of private conversations was a concrete injury and let the federal wiretap, California eavesdropping and Illinois biometric claims proceed, while dismissing some claims. Otter's answer to the consolidated complaint, filed on 17 September 2026, says it lacks knowledge of the plaintiffs' experiences and denies the allegations.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

1 Oct 2024 to 28 Feb 2025AustraliaUnidentified image and video tool

Adelaide man who made sexual deepfakes of a teenage girl from her graduation photo gets suspended jail term in Australia's first federal deepfake prosecution

William Hamish Yeates, then 18, of Netherby in Adelaide, created sexually explicit deepfake images and videos of a teenage girl with whom, his counsel said, he had developed an obsession, using her school graduation photograph, and shared them across multiple accounts on X between October 2024 and February 2025. Appearing in court in February 2026 charged with eight counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent and 12 counts of using a carriage service in a harassing or offensive way, he became the first person in Australia prosecuted under the Commonwealth offence introduced in 2024 against adult deepfake pornography; in April 2026 he pleaded guilty to two counts of creating or altering sexual material without consent (October 2024 to February 2025) and two of the carriage-service offence, and the remaining counts were withdrawn. At a pre-sentence hearing in the South Australian District Court on 22 September 2026 the victim, now 19, told the court that the first time she saw her actual graduation picture was on a pornography website beside altered videos of her with her full name and school attached, that she feels sick whenever she sees the photo, that the discovery led to the darkest period of her life, and that although the images were fake their impact was painfully real. Yeates read an apology; his counsel cited diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and compulsive sexual behaviour disorder and asked for no custody; the Commonwealth prosecutor sought imprisonment. On 27 October 2026, according to AAP, Judge Anne Barnett sentenced him in the South Australian District Court to two years and three months' prison, suspended on condition that he enter a three-year, $500 good behaviour bond, and ordered him to pay the victim's medical expenses and forfeit a phone and laptop seized by police; the judge said the availability of AI tools had increased the capacity for offending and to cause substantial harm, and that the victim remains frightened the content will resurface.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 23/09/2026

Dec 2024 to Jun 2025United StatesUnidentified image and video tool

Columbus, Ohio: a man was sentenced to 15 years for cyberstalking at least six women with real and AI-generated sexual images and rape threats, the first conviction under the Take It Down Act

Between December 2024 and June 2025 James Strahler II, then 37, of Columbus (Upper Arlington), Ohio, harassed at least six women in central Ohio by phone, voicemail, text and web posts, sending them nude images that were both real and AI-generated, threatening rape, referring to their home addresses and demanding nude photos from their mothers. In one case he used AI to make pornographic videos depicting a victim with her father and sent them to her co-workers. He also posted AI-generated sexual images of boys from his community, morphing their faces onto other bodies. Prosecutors said he had installed more than 24 AI platforms and more than 100 web-based AI models on his phone. He pleaded guilty in April 2026 to cyberstalking, producing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse and publication of digital forgeries, and on 8 September 2026 Chief U.S. District Judge Sarah D. Morrison sentenced him to 180 months in prison. The U.S. Attorney called it the first conviction in the nation under the 2025 Take It Down Act.

Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources · Added 18/09/2026

1 Nov 2024 to 28 Jan 2026United StatesTurnitin AI-text detector

Adelphi accused Orion Newby of AI plagiarism after a detector flagged his paper; a Nassau County judge ordered the finding expunged

Orion Newby, an Adelphi University first-year student with language and auditory processing disabilities, received a zero in November 2024 on a World Civilizations paper after the professor suspected it was AI-generated and the university relied in part on AI-detection software; he was ordered to attend a plagiarism workshop and his appeal was denied, leaving him one finding from suspension or expulsion. Newby — who had written the paper with 15-20 hours of tutor support through the university's own disability program — said the detectors flagged his citations, and two other detectors scored the paper as human. After the family sued, New York State Supreme Court Judge Randy Sue Marber in Nassau County ruled on 28 January 2026 that Adelphi's finding and its denial of his appeal were 'without valid basis and devoid of reason' and ordered his record expunged. The family spent six figures on legal costs.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 15/09/2026

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: 11/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.