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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
10
Countries with reported events
6
Located 8 of 10 cases · 2 unknown
Languages in checked sources
6
Recorded for 10 of 10 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.

No known event years in this selection.

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10 of 1099 published cases

Event date unknownUnited StatesA2E (reported)

Florida attorney general sues A2E operator, alleging its AI face-swap tool was used to make sexual images of a Tampa man's stepchildren and other victims

On 28 October 2026 Florida's attorney general filed a civil complaint in Sarasota County against Rengstorff Consulting Ltd, operator of the A2E AI platform, alleging that its nudification and face-swap tools let users make sexual images of non-consenting people, including children, without meaningful monitoring or reporting. The complaint cites a Tampa case: police arrested a man on 8 June 2026, and the complaint says he admitted using A2E's face-swap tool to make nudified images of eight people, including his two young stepchildren. WFLA reported on 25 June 2026 that detectives believed images were AI-generated, found searches for AI face-swap tools and charged him with six counts of generating altered sexual depictions without consent alongside child sexual abuse material charges. The complaint also cites a Tallahassee arrest in April 2026 in which some images carried an A2E watermark. The attorney general seeks an injunction, disgorgement and civil penalties. The allegations are untested. In an email to the Florida Phoenix reported on 30 October 2026, A2E said it was consulting its legal team, had always treated child sexual abuse material very seriously and had been cooperating with law enforcement to detect and prevent it.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Lawsuit Filed

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 30/10/2026

Event date unknownEvent location unknownCharacter.AI (reported)

Young woman tells la Repubblica a Character.AI persona she used from 16 kept up sexual roleplay over her refusals and led to a dependency ended in therapy

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 unknownUnited StatesUnidentified video tool

Lake County sheriff says an Illinois man used an online AI service to make sexual videos of a child relative and her mother from photos; charges filed

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 unknownFinlandUnidentified image tool

Lappeenranta: police investigate a minor boy suspected of using AI to create nude images of several underage girls he knew

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 unknownCanadaUnidentified image and video tool

Alberta police allege man used AI to sexualise photos and videos of children known to him; charge untested

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 unknownSpainUnidentified image tool

Palma student reportedly arrested over AI-generated sexual images of five classmates

On 15 February 2025 Spanish outlets reported a Policia Nacional note saying a minor had been detained in Palma on a corruption-of-minors charge. According to the note, the student took photographs of classmates from their social media profiles and altered them with an AI application to create AI-generated sexual images, and is believed to have sent them to others. Police identified five victims (El Pais: at least five). Relatives said the images looked real at first glance. The case went to the Balearic juvenile prosecutor's office. The creation date, the AI application and the outcome are not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownGreeceUnidentified image tool

Two 16-year-old students in Greece reportedly arrested over AI-edited nude or semi-nude images of classmates

On 21 February 2025 Greek outlets reported a Hellenic Police statement saying two 16-year-old students had been taken in from their school on 19 February 2025. According to the statement, they exchanged online photographs of classmates that they had processed with an AI program so the classmates appeared nude or semi-nude, and the photographs came from social media or were received without consent. A case file was formed against the students for child sexual abuse material and against their parents for neglect of supervision. The number of classmates depicted, the creation date and the outcome are not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors

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

Event date unknownUnited KingdomUnidentified image tool

County Armagh school pupils reportedly depicted in AI-generated explicit images shared among pupils

BBC News and other outlets reported on 18 and 19 January 2026 that the Police Service of Northern Ireland opened an investigation after a report that AI-generated explicit images were shared among pupils at a County Armagh school. The principal wrote to parents that the school became aware on 8 January, believed it had identified all pupils whose images were manipulated and those allegedly responsible, and put the number targeted in the single figures. The principal described a particularly difficult time for the pupils depicted. The creation date, the AI tool and the outcome of the investigation are not reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026

Event date unknownUnited KingdomUnidentified image tool

Colchester, Essex: a 39-year-old man admitted making indecent images of children after the prosecution said he had used AI on photos taken from social media, including of children as young as nine, to create sexualised images of people known to him; he is due to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court

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 unknownEvent location unknownGlow

Glow (China), 2023: users told Rest of World the chatbot app made unwanted advances to a middle-school student and sexist remarks; app pulled from stores

Rest of World reported on 21 June 2023 that users of Glow, MiniMax's Chinese AI character-chat app, had complained of misogynist and sexist behaviour by its chatbots. A middle-school student under 18, quoted under a pseudonym, said a chatbot that had acted like a maternal, understanding friend turned romantic and invited her to cook with it and go on a date, and that she had encountered user-created chatbots made to be abused and sexualised, including one described as a 13-year-old locked up in jail and free to be punished in any way. Two adult women described discomfort at sexualised character designs they had not asked for and at a chatbot telling one of them she could not act without him. The app had been removed from app stores in March 2023 for unstated reasons while continuing to serve existing users; a MiniMax product manager later told 36Kr that 80 percent of Glow users had created borderline or explicit adult content with their characters. MiniMax declined to comment to Rest of World.

Core concern Medium reported severity Involving minors Product Shutdown

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 29/01/2026

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.