1 Mar 2023 to 22 Jun 2023Event location unknownChatGPT
In a passenger's personal-injury suit against the airline Avianca in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, an opposition brief filed on 1 March 2023 cited judicial opinions that did not exist. The court found that the lawyer who did the research had used ChatGPT, which fabricated the cases, and that when he asked the chatbot whether one of them was real it replied that it had supplied real authorities that could be found on legal databases. On 22 June 2023 the court found bad faith by the two lawyers, based on their conduct after the citations were questioned, and imposed a USD 5,000 penalty jointly on them and their firm, together with letters to the client and to each judge falsely named as an author of the fake opinions.
Core + contextual relations Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources · Added 28/10/2026
May 2023United StatesChatGPT
A Colorado lawyer who had recently moved into civil litigation used ChatGPT in April and May 2023 to find case law for a client's motion to set aside a judgment and cited three Colorado Court of Appeals decisions that did not exist, without reading or checking them. On the morning of the 5 May hearing he realised the cases were fabricated but did not tell the court or withdraw the motion, and when the judge raised concerns he falsely blamed a legal intern; six days later he filed an affidavit saying he had used ChatGPT. The judge denied the motion, said the denial did not rest on the invented cases, and ordered him to show cause why he should not be sanctioned and reported to attorney regulators. On 22 November 2023 Colorado's Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved a stipulation suspending him for one year and one day, with 90 days served and the rest stayed on two years' probation, for violating rules on competence, diligence, candour to the tribunal and honesty.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 26/10/2026
20 Apr 2023ChinaUnidentified video tool
Police in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, said in a statement published in May 2023 that on 20 April 2023 the legal representative of a technology company in Fuzhou, Fujian, received a WeChat video call from someone who appeared to be a friend and asked to route a 4.3 million yuan tender deposit through the company's account; trusting the video call, he transferred 4.3 million yuan in two payments. The police said the fraudster had used AI face-swapping to pose as the friend. At Fuzhou police's request, Baotou police and a local bank stopped 3.3684 million yuan within about ten minutes; 931,600 yuan had been moved on and was being pursued.
Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 22/10/2026
Sept 2023AustraliaChatGPT
Victoria's Information Commissioner (OVIC) found in a report published on 24 September 2024 that a child protection worker at the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) used ChatGPT in or around September 2023 to draft a Protection Application Report submitted to the Children's Court about a young child. On the balance of probabilities, OVIC found the worker entered personal information, including names, about the child, mother, father and carer, disclosing it to OpenAI; the worker admitted using ChatGPT but denied entering personal information. OVIC found generated content in the report described a doll that the father had reportedly used for sexual purposes as a parental strength ('age-appropriate toys'), downplaying the risk to the child, although the court's and the department's decisions did not change. The report was withdrawn and replaced, and the mother, father and carer described anxiety when told of the disclosure. OVIC found serious breaches of two privacy principles and issued a compliance notice requiring DFFH to ban and block generative AI text tools for child protection staff until November 2026; DFFH accepted the breach findings.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
31 Jul 2023Event location unknownUnidentified AI video-analysis system
According to La Razón's account of a July 2024 judgment of the High Court of Justice of Asturias, Duro Felguera replaced the continuous on-site guarding provided by the contractor Protectum with a Securitas service that, from 1 August 2023, combined cameras with artificial intelligence for video analysis, roving patrols and alarm response. The guards of the outgoing contract were left out of the new one. Protectum ended a guard's employment on 31 July 2023. The court held that Securitas did not have to take him on because the new service was different, declared the dismissal unfair and ordered Protectum to pay him €30,672.72 in compensation plus processing wages. La Razón notes that human guards still intervened in the new service and that the presence of AI was part of the reorganisation without making the dismissal lawful.
AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 12/10/2026