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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 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

Explore incidents Our scope and evidence

In this selection

Published cases
3
Countries with reported events
3
Located 3 of 3 cases · 0 unknown
Languages in checked sources
1
Recorded for 3 of 3 cases
5Core concern
AI communicated, acted for, depicted or impersonated 3Contextual 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.

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

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

When events happened

1 case 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 20191 2026
Reported severity MediumLow
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3 of 1099 published cases

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Event date unknownAustraliaUnidentified AI checkout camera monitoring system

Australian supermarket cashier got final written warning after AI checkout camera system flagged scanning errors, union submission says

The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA), an Australian union representing retail, warehouse and fast-food workers, told the federal parliament's Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence in its written submission that a supermarket employee with more than 30 years' service had recently received a final written warning for scanning inaccuracy generated by an AI checkout monitoring system. According to the union, the system uses overhead cameras to compare items moved through the checkout with items scanned and automatically flags possible mismatches, which set off escalation to head office and pressure on store managers to act. The SDA says her error rate was about 0.18 per cent, roughly one error in 533 items scanned, and that she was never told what standard the system applied. The Sydney Morning Herald (10 October 2026) and Guardian Australia (20 October 2026) reported the case; the Herald says the union has challenged the warning. The account is the union's; the supermarket is not named, and its response and the result of the challenge are not reported.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

Dec 2019 to Jul 2020United StatesUnidentified facial recognition system

US: FTC says Rite Aid's facial recognition falsely matched shoppers to a watchlist, leading staff to search an 11-year-old girl and call police on a woman

In a complaint filed in federal court in Pennsylvania on 19 December 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission alleged that the pharmacy chain Rite Aid used facial recognition in its stores to match customers against a database of people it suspected of shoplifting or other wrongdoing, and that staff acted on the match alerts by following, searching, ejecting and publicly accusing customers and by calling the police. The FTC says many alerts were false positives: employees recorded thousands of false-positive alerts between December 2019 and July 2020, staff stopped and searched an 11-year-old girl on a false match, and employees called the police on a Black woman matched to an image of a white woman with blonde hair. Rite Aid agreed to a proposed order barring it from using facial recognition in retail stores for five years, without admitting or denying the allegations.

Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026

6 Aug 2026United KingdomFacewatch facial recognition

London shopper says staff told him Sainsbury's facial recognition flagged him as a shoplifter and he was escorted out; retailer blames human error

On 6 August 2026 Matt Arnold, a comedy promoter, was refused service at a self-service till in Sainsbury's East Dulwich store and escorted out by two managers, who cited an incident earlier in the week. He says a staff member told him he had been identified by the AI and that he saw a CCTV monitor alert with a red circle around his face as he left. Sainsbury's apologised the next day, said the cause was human error rather than the facial recognition technology, and paused its Facewatch system at the store while it investigates. Facewatch says a correct alert was sent and mishandled in store; the BBC reports Sainsbury's claim that staff targeted the wrong person after a separate flag. Whose face the system matched is unresolved.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action

AI involvement disputed · Causal attribution disputed · 2 sources · Added 16/09/2026

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.