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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
8
Countries with reported events
3
Located 7 of 8 cases · 1 unknown
Languages in checked sources
3
Recorded for 8 of 8 cases

2 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 2 not yet reviewed and 0 reviewed as unknown. Show these 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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8 of 1099 published cases

9 Dec 2025United StatesZeroEyes gun detection

Florida middle school locked down and police sent after ZeroEyes AI gun detection flagged a student's clarinet as a possible gun, reports say

On 9 December 2025 a Seminole County, Florida, middle school went into a Code Red lockdown and police rushed to the campus after the ZeroEyes AI weapons detection system, whose alerts are checked by the company's human analysts before police are notified, flagged a student holding a clarinet as a possible gun. According to a police report reviewed by The Washington Post (as relayed by Ars Technica) and obtained by WKMG News 6, officers expected an armed person in camouflage holding a shouldered rifle; dispatch later told them the suspected rifle was likely a band instrument, and police found the student, who was dressed as a military film character for a themed dress-up day, among panicked students hiding in the band room. Officers questioned him and found no weapon in his backpack or instrument case (Oviedo Community News, February 2026). The student said he was unaware the way he held the clarinet could trigger the alert. ZeroEyes said it had not made an error, while also treating the alert as a true positive only until officers on the ground found no rifle and then classifying it as a false positive; the district said the system worked as intended; the principal asked parents to talk to their children about the dangers of pretending to have a weapon.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 23/10/2026

Nov 2025ChinaUnidentified image tool

Shanghai court convicts a man who, police say, used AI software to fake food-poisoning medical records and extort restaurants into paying compensation

Police in Yangpu district, Shanghai, say a customer extorted restaurants with medical records he had forged using AI software; Xinhua dates his first successful claim to November 2025. In the police account (Shangguan News, 26 February 2026) he claimed to have fallen ill after eating at a barbecue restaurant, showed a hospital visit record and medical invoice, and demanded 2,000 yuan in medical costs, threatening complaints and publicity; the restaurant paid. Police checked with other diners and the hospital, found he had no hospital record and the materials were forged, and say he confessed to using AI software to alter images of other people's medical records, replacing the name, date and amount. Police say he succeeded twice and failed twice, obtaining 2,500 yuan, and that he also filed complaints to market regulators with the forged material to pressure the restaurants. According to Xinhua's June report and the Procuratorate Daily, the Yangpu District People's Court convicted him of extortion and sentenced him to four months' criminal detention, suspended for four months, and a 2,000 yuan fine.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Criminal Charges

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources · Added 17/10/2026

Jun 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers

Morristown, Tennessee: police held a grandmother and grandfather at gunpoint and handcuffed them in June 2025, with their 3-year-old granddaughter left in the car, after a Flock alert flagged the grandmother's vanity plate, which matched a recovered stolen pickup's plate spelled with a zero; police say the stop rested on the crime database

In June 2025 Morristown, Tennessee, police stopped a couple driving their 3-year-old granddaughter to a doctor's appointment, held them at gunpoint and handcuffed them both. The grandmother's personalized plate spelled a nickname with the letter O; a Ford F-150 reported stolen in Claiborne County carried the same word spelled with a zero. Business Insider reported in March 2026 that officers received a Flock alert that the plate was stolen, that the Flock investigative summary recorded the couple's plate with a zero, and that the stolen pickup had already been recovered but was never removed from the system. The police department told WATE that the officer ran the tag as displayed, with an O, and that with either character it showed as stolen in the crime information database; the police chief told Business Insider that officers relied on the National Crime Information Center as protocol requires. The grandfather told WATE that he thought he might be shot and felt humiliated, and the grandmother said she was crying as she heard her granddaughter calling for her.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Media Coverage

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026

Apr 2025Event location unknownGoogle AI Overviews

Google AI Overview reportedly states that an orthopedic surgeon in Negrar is dead after a homonym's death

Italian outlets report that Google's AI Overview feature told searchers that Claudio Zorzi, head of orthopedics and traumatology at the IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria hospital in Negrar (Verona), had died. According to the hospital, the surgeon is alive and operating, and the error probably came from confusion with a general practitioner of the same name who died. The false news is reported to have circulated since April 2025 and to have recurred. Zorzi said he felt uncomfortable because people who think he is dead do not look for him, and he reported the notice to the postal police. On 15 October 2025 the hospital served Google, through its lawyers, with a formal cease-and-desist and default notice and reserved a damages claim. No Google response was found. The AI Overview output itself was not inspected.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

24 Oct 2025United KingdomMicrosoft Copilot (reported)

Birmingham: police report to a safety advisory group contained a fixture that never happened, attributed to Microsoft Copilot, during the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fan restriction

On 24 October 2025 West Midlands Police gave Birmingham City Council's Safety Advisory Group a written report that cited a Maccabi Tel Aviv v West Ham match on 9 November 2023 that never took place. The group had advised on 16 October that Aston Villa give no tickets to Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters for the 6 November 2025 match. In January 2026 the Chief Constable said the error arose from use of Microsoft Copilot, after earlier telling MPs it came from a Google search. The inspectorate found the ban advice predated the report and said confirmation bias influenced the force's assessments to the group. The sources do not show the Copilot output caused the ban.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources · Added 29/09/2026

20 Oct 2025United StatesOmnilert gun detection

Baltimore County, Maryland: school AI gun alert on a bag of chips leads to police search of a student

On a Monday evening in October 2025 (20 October by the reports' weekday references) an AI gun detection system (Omnilert) used at Kenwood High School alerted on a student holding an empty bag of chips. Police responded and searched the student and found no weapon. The student told a local television station that officers made them kneel, handcuffed them and pointed a gun at them. The school district says its security department reviewed and canceled the alert after confirming there was no weapon, and a district spokesperson said the principal did not immediately realize the alert had been canceled. County councilmembers called for a review. No outcome of a review is established in the sources.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

12 Sept 2025United StatesGaggle school monitoring

Deltona, Florida: Gaggle school-laptop alert leads to felony arrest of a 15-year-old over a typed gun threat the student said was not serious

According to a Volusia County Sheriff's Office account carried by local outlets, a 15-year-old high school student in Deltona, Florida was arrested on 12 September 2025 after typing a written threat to bring a gun to school on a school-issued laptop. The Gaggle student-monitoring software raised an alert that notified the school resource deputy, who detained the student before the student boarded the bus home. The student was arrested on a second-degree felony charge (one outlet says the charge was still to be filed). The student reportedly admitted typing the text, said it was not meant seriously and said the motive was anger about being picked on. Outcome of the charge and the exact Gaggle role in generating this alert are not reported.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Involving minors

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026

14 Jul 2025 to 24 Dec 2025United StatesClearview AI facial recognition (reported)

Tennessee grandmother Angela Lipps jailed five months on an AI facial-recognition misidentification; charges dismissed after bank records placed her 1,200 miles away

On 14 July 2025, U.S. Marshals arrested Angela Lipps, a 50-year-old Tennessee grandmother, at gunpoint at her home while she was babysitting four children, on a nationwide-extradition North Dakota warrant: West Fargo police's AI facial-recognition technology had tied her to bank-fraud surveillance of a woman using a fake U.S. Army military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars. She fought extradition for about three months in a Tennessee jail, was booked into Cass County, North Dakota on 30 October 2025 on four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and four counts of theft, and was released on 24 December after her bank records showed her more than 1,200 miles away in Tennessee; charges were dismissed without prejudice. Fargo's police chief acknowledged 'incorrect assumptions' linked to the AI identification; an email obtained by KVLY shows six Fargo detectives were notified of her arrest in July, nearly five months before the department says it knew she was in custody. She lost her home, her car and her dog; her attorneys are pursuing potential civil-rights claims, with no lawsuit filed as of 31 March 2026. On 15 September 2026 she filed a $10 million federal civil-rights suit in the District of North Dakota against the City of Fargo and the detective, alleging he relied on a flawed facial-recognition match and ignored exculpatory evidence.

Contextual tracker case High reported severity Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 3 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: 04/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.