25 Sept 2025NetherlandsChatGPT (reported)
A master's student at the University of Groningen used an AI tool while preparing the reference list of his thesis. The examiner found many non-existent references, and on 25 September 2025 the Faculty of Economics and Business exam board declared all his work for the thesis course invalid for fraud, excluded him from the course for one year and told him he no longer qualified for a cum laude judgment. The university's examination appeals board upheld this on 31 March 2026. The student said he had only used an AI tool to categorise sources, giving it his existing reference list as input. On 12 August 2026 the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State found that the references in the thesis text led to existing, relevant sources, that the AI had evidently garbled the student's own reference list, and that only carelessness, not fraud, had been shown. It annulled both decisions and ordered the thesis to be assessed again.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 02/11/2026
Event date unknownIndonesiaUnidentified image and video tool
In October 2025 indecent photos and videos showing the faces of female students and at least one teacher of a public high school in Semarang, Central Java, spread on X from the account of a university student in Semarang who had attended the school. Kompas described the videos as made with AI editing. The student posted an apology on the school's Instagram account saying the student had edited and uploaded friends' photos and videos without permission. Central Java police's cyber directorate investigated, named the student a suspect and took the student into custody on 13 November 2025; the police spokesman said investigators had established the elements of an AI-based pornography offence that also breached the electronic information and transactions law. On 5 March 2026 Semarang District Court sentenced the student to one year in prison and a 2-billion-rupiah fine, more than the seven months prosecutors had sought. According to ANTARA, the court found that the student had produced 1,100 pornographic photo and video files, that the content remained publicly accessible and that the editing caused the victims psychological trauma. Both sides said they would consider the verdict; no appeal outcome was found.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 01/11/2026
Event date unknownChinaUnidentified video tool
According to a CCTV report of August 2026 quoting the deputy head of the criminal division of the Yuhua District People's Court in Changsha, Hunan, a university student close to graduation bought access to a technique that turned still face photos into AI-generated moving face videos able to pass one bank payment platform's face-recognition check. Upstream members of fraud groups, which CCTV says usually lure people into installing remote-control software, sent him the victims' personal details and photos; he converted the photos into AI face videos through a third-party website and, with the verification codes, reset the victims' payment passwords so that a money-laundering crew could move money out of their linked bank accounts. In under four months the accounts of three victims lost more than 50,000 yuan in total. The court, taking into account his surrender, admission and compensation of the victims, sentenced him to one year and ten months in prison and a 3,000 yuan fine; the judgment has taken effect. The dates of the thefts and of the judgment are not reported.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 30/10/2026
2026FinlandUnidentified chatbot
Helsingin Sanomat reported on 29 October 2026 that Netari, the online youth service of Pelastakaa Lapset (Save the Children Finland), has since summer 2026 received requests for help from young people around the world, and that some of them say they ended up at the service on an AI's recommendation. According to the organisation's psychosocial support expert, about 20 to 30 contacts from abroad have arrived since the summer, from countries including Uganda, Britain, India and Palestine; the messages are long and partly composed with AI, and describe violence, loneliness and long-standing problems. The expert says some of these young people live in families or communities where they experience violence and discrimination because of their identity, and some are very self-destructive. Netari's chat help is meant for young people living in Finland. The organisation has decided that young people living permanently abroad are directed straight to services in their own countries, and Netari has looked for such services for them; the expert says the young people have been clearly disappointed when redirected, and the organisation is concerned that some may be left without support. Working through these situations burdens duty staff and takes time from young people in Finland. The route by which every young person found the service is not known; some may have found it through search engines or social media, and the names of the AI services involved are not known. A University of Helsinki computer science professor considers it possible that the contacts relate to how AI is trained to answer requests for help, and calls this guesswork.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 30/10/2026
22 Oct 2026FranceUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)
On 22 October 2026 the urgent-applications judge of the Rennes administrative tribunal rejected a student's request, filed through a lawyer on 18 October, to suspend a university's June 2026 refusal to admit her to a psychology master's programme, finding neither urgency nor serious doubt about the refusal's legality. The judge also fined her 750 euros for an abusive request. The order gives as reasons that the request met neither condition, concerned a programme for which she manifestly lacked the level, and referred to other people's names in ways the judge read as stereotyped mass-produced appeals; it adds that the request mixed curly and straight apostrophes, used many em dashes and black round bullets, and had an ordered but repetitive argument, elements the judge called characteristic of text generated by a generative-AI tool such as Claude.ai. The order does not establish who drafted the request or whether AI was used; Clubic noted that a copy and paste from a word processor can leave the same traces.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 28/10/2026
2020NetherlandsProctorio
During the 2020/21 academic year, when exams at VU Amsterdam were held online because of the pandemic, some exams required students to run Proctorio proctoring software, which according to the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights used face-detection algorithms during a pre-exam webcam check to judge whether the student was in view. A master's student says the software had trouble recognising her, that she regularly received 'face not found' or 'room too dark' messages, lost time, shone a bright lamp into her face while taking exams, and experienced stress and a feeling of insecurity; she suspected the failures were linked to her dark skin and complained to the Institute in July 2022. In an interim ruling of 7 December 2022 the Institute found sufficient indications for a presumption of discrimination. In its final ruling of 17 October 2023 it found that the university had proved it had not discriminated against her by using Proctorio: on the exam where her setup took longer than average (31 March 2021), the webcam check failed three times and she passed within eight seconds after the helpdesk advised her to remove her glasses, a known Proctorio problem the Institute treated as unrelated to skin colour; a restart during that exam was very likely caused by an unstable internet connection; and it considered it plausible that she had no need to keep a lamp shining in her face for long periods. It found that the university had discriminated in handling her complaint, which took from 1 October 2021 to 11 May 2022 to be taken up. The university apologised that she had not felt heard.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 4 sources · Added 28/10/2026
2025RussiaAntiplagiat AI-text detector
RAPSI and BIZNES Online reported on 8 and 10 June 2026 that the Supreme Court of Tatarstan upheld a ruling that a private Moscow university unlawfully expelled a distance-learning student in 2025 over suspected use of AI in her graduation thesis. According to the university's representatives in court as reported, the Antiplagiat.Vuz system first showed about 41% (41.91%) AI-generated text, her supervisor then said the word order had been deliberately disturbed in more than 70% of the text, and a third check showed 11.92%. BIZNES Online also reports, from the court documents, that a university representative told the court the supervisor does not operate the checking system and had not in fact analysed the text for neural-network generation, and could not explain how the system distinguishes borrowed text from AI generation. The university refused the revised work as late (uploaded on Monday 9 June 2025 against a deadline of 8 June) and expelled her; the department's protocol cited a breach of good-faith work in the Antiplagiat.Vuz system. She denied using AI. In January 2026 the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan held the expulsion unlawful, ordered her reinstatement for a check of her thesis and, if it met the originality threshold, admission to the defence, and awarded 40,000 roubles in moral damages and a 20,000-rouble fine. The Supreme Court of Tatarstan dismissed the university's appeal: it held that the probabilistic report had not been checked by a competent expert and could not be the sole proof of bad faith, noted that the same text was classified as AI-generated in one report and not in another, and found no evidence that any flagged fragments resulted from her deliberate acts rather than her sources or an incorrect algorithm. The courts also held the deadline had been miscounted.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/10/2026
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
9 Oct 2026CanadaUnidentified image tool (suspected)
A woman in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, told Global News that a duct-cleaning crew she booked through a Facebook Marketplace advert came to her home on 9 October 2026, showed her a phone photo of a dirty furnace motor, raised the price to $300 and then showed her a photo of a motor that looked almost new as proof the job was done. When she checked after the crew left, she says, the motor was still dirty. An AI researcher at the University at Buffalo and two students, examining the photos for Global News, found a Google SynthID watermark on the clean-motor photo; the researcher said the AI detector Sightengine gave it a 99 per cent AI score and called the result their strongest evidence that the image may come from AI. She says the company denied wrongdoing and refunded her only after repeated complaints; Halifax police told her it was a civil matter.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 24/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified chatbot
An Alcorn State University history professor in Mississippi said in TikTok videos from 20 July 2026, reported by TechSpot, Fox News and SuperTalk Mississippi, that he had hidden an instruction in white text in a midterm discussion question telling an AI to place the word Madagascar in the answer in a way that makes no sense. According to his account, 32 of 35 students across two classes pasted the question into a chatbot and submitted its output, which mentioned Madagascar in nonsensical sentences, and those students failed that portion of the midterm. He said he let students contest the grade or resubmit their own response; two contested, and one student had her grade changed after saying she had read the hidden text in dark mode and thought it was part of the assignment. He later reported final grades that included one F. The account rests on the instructor's videos; no student or university statement is reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026
Event date unknownSwedenUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)
A student at Lund University wrote close to 1,500 words in six minutes during an exam in May, while other students took around two hours, according to Aftonbladet's relay, dated 28 September 2026, of a Sydsvenskan report. The teacher's report to the university said a writing speed of around 300 words a minute is not realistic for independently produced answers. The student denies cheating: she says she had technical problems, believed the exam would not be graded and wrote only 20 to 50 words per question. The university's disciplinary board sided with the teacher, judged that she had used AI and suspended her from her studies for six weeks. The report does not name an AI tool or describe any detection tool.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026
14 Sept 2026 to 25 Oct 2026SwedenUnidentified AI writing tool
The disciplinary board of Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in northern Sweden decided six disciplinary cases and suspended five students from teaching for six weeks, from 14 September to 25 October 2026, Norrbottens-Kuriren reported on 21 September 2026. In two of the cases, according to the newspaper, the matter was unauthorised use of AI in which the submitted work contained invented source references, among them a reference to a book that does not exist. The other suspensions concerned plagiarism of a classmate's lab report and unauthorised notes at an exam; a sixth student received a warning. The report does not name the AI tool, the courses or the students and quotes neither the students nor the university.
Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026
Jun 2025NorwayUnidentified AI writing tool (suspected)
A student at the University of Bergen (UiB), whom the student newspaper Studvest calls "Anna", submitted a portfolio exam in spring 2025. In June 2025, after the grading deadline, she was told her grade was withheld on suspicion of cheating. According to Studvest, several errors in the source references were why the course coordinator suspected use of AI and reported her to UiB's board for student cases. She says she had by mistake submitted an unfinished draft with a to-do list and notes to herself, and her lawyer told UiB the source errors came from that draft. In March 2026 the board annulled the exam and excluded her from UiB for two semesters, and UiB upheld the decision on 29 May 2026. On her appeal, the national appeals board for cheating cases (Felles klagenemnd) found that the wrong-file submission justified cutting the exclusion to one semester and struck the exclusion entirely because of UiB's long handling time. She describes shame and 15 months of uncertainty that made it hard to concentrate and hurt her grades. Whether she used AI is not established in the account; UiB says it does not comment on individual cases.
AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement suspected · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026
Event date unknownChinaUnidentified chatbot
A case series published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care in 2026 by an author from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev describes three cases in which chatbots misled patients or families. In the first, a 16-year-old boy with recurring abdominal pain had a severe episode while travelling in China and consulted a local alternative-medicine practitioner, who prescribed an herbal remedy containing Aristolochia (birthwort) extract. Unsure about the treatment, he asked a popular commercial chatbot, which reassured him that the remedy was safe and harmless. The therapy was stopped after three days because it did not help and he developed severe nausea. After returning home he learned that Aristolochia contains aristolochic acid, a nephrotoxin linked to irreversible kidney damage and cancer and banned in many countries. The report does not name the chatbot, say when this happened or report any kidney testing or lasting effect.
Core concern Low 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 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 unknownMexicoUnidentified image tool
In October 2023 female students at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) business school in Mexico City complained that a fellow student had taken their photos from social media and edited them with artificial intelligence to make them look naked; he was also accused of selling them, which the 2025 conviction did not establish. The IPN expelled him on 16 October and the Mexico City prosecutor's office (FGJCDMX) opened an investigation; on 26 October 2023 it announced his arrest, describing him as accused of manipulating intimate photographs altered with artificial intelligence. Students said eight victims had filed complaints. Police found more than 166,000 images and 20,000 videos, edited and original, on his devices. In December 2024 a judge acquitted him in two cases of violation of privacy; in May 2025 he was sentenced to five years in prison for child sexual abuse material, a conviction based on storage of the material. Other cases remained open.
Core concern High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources · Added 22/10/2026
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
14 Oct 2026South KoreaUnidentified AI problem-solving tool
In a midterm exam on 14 October 2026 in a major course of about 100 students at Konkuk University in Seoul, a student sent the questions to a friend through a camera attached to the chest; the friend solved them using AI and sent the answers to the student's smartwatch, according to the professor's notice to students as reported by JoongAng Ilbo on 21 October 2026. The professor became suspicious of a perfect score, asked the student to solve the same problems again, and the student could not and confessed. The university said the professor gave the student a zero on the exam and an F in the course under its regulations for cheating by writing answers using AI and a smartwatch, and the department decided to ban cameras and watches from the final exam onward. The AI tool is not named, and no consequence for the friend is reported.
AI relation unknown Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
2026South KoreaUnidentified AI coding tool
In the first semester of 2026, 36 of the 62 students in a fourth-year computer engineering course on computer networking at Seoul National University were penalised for using AI on coding assignments, according to an SNU official and the course's professor as reported by JoongAng Ilbo and Yonhap on 30 July 2026. The syllabus said all course activities would be conducted without generative AI. The professor gave zero marks on the affected assignments to 25 students who came forward and a D-minus course grade to 11 who admitted AI use only when interviewed; he said all 36 admitted using AI. The department's student government objected that the criteria were unclear and that honest students were penalised while others may not have been; the professor rejected this. On 16 October 2026 a lawmaker raised SNU's AI cheating incidents at the National Assembly audit, and the university president said its AI guidelines needed to be supplemented.
Core concern Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 21/10/2026
2026ChinaUnidentified video tool
The Beijing News reported on 18 October 2026, in a follow-up to its investigation of 'Xiaohai' accounts on Chinese short-video platforms, that the accounts show AI-generated teenage boys who address older women as 'aunties and mothers' and steer them to high-priced shop windows. A university student told the paper that an older relative of a friend had been watching 'Xiaohai' videos and asked the friend why the boy was so badly off; the friend then found that the relative had already bought several orders of goods at high prices through the persona's shop window. The student made a counter-video with the same AI tools, posted on 28 September, in which the persona admits to deceiving viewers; after the friend showed it to the relative, the relative said they would not buy the persona's goods again. The amount spent and the goods bought are not reported. China National Radio's report the same day also describes the 'Xiaohai' videos as AI-generated and notes that many carry an 'AI-generated' watermark.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 19/10/2026