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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
63
Countries with reported events
22
Located 55 of 63 cases · 8 unknown
Languages in checked sources
16
Recorded for 63 of 63 cases

9 cases have no reviewed AI-to-person relation yet: 0 not yet reviewed and 9 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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63 of 1101 published cases · page 1 of 4

Oct 2026IndiaUnidentified image and video tool

Jaipur police say an engineer faked his own kidnapping and sent his family AI-made images and videos of himself held captive, demanding ransom

Police in Jaipur, Rajasthan, say a software engineer who went missing on 26 October 2026 staged his own kidnapping and sent relatives fabricated photos and videos, which police and the man's own account describe as AI-generated, showing him held captive, in pain and admitted to a hospital. Bhaskar English reports that he demanded a ransom of 7 lakh rupees from the family. His brother-in-law filed a kidnapping complaint, police searched several cities using CCTV footage, and on 30 October officers found him in Rishikesh. Police say he confessed and had borrowed money from friends that he could not repay. The Hindi daily Amar Ujala, which describes him as an IT student, reports that the family panicked at the messages before informing police, and that officers brought him back to Jaipur and handed him over to his family. No payment by the family and no charge are reported.

Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/11/2026

16 Sept 2026UkraineUnidentified image tool

Ukrainian court fines mother after her son used AI to generate a fake nude photo of his teacher and sent it to a classmate

A district court in Ukraine's Poltava region fined the mother of a school pupil on 22 October 2026 after finding she had failed in her duty to bring up her son, who, according to the case materials as reported, used a neural network on 16 September 2026 to generate fake nude photos of his teacher from her image without her consent and sent one to a classmate. The mother admitted the offence and confirmed her son had made such images, saying he sent only one to a classmate and that she did not know how the photos spread further. The court imposed an administrative fine of 850 hryvnias plus court fees. The report does not name the AI tool, and no statement from the teacher is reported.

Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 30/10/2026

12 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified AI tool

Paraná labour court annuls expert report carrying a hidden instruction aimed at AI and fines the court-appointed expert, report says

A labour court in Castro, Paraná (9th Region Labour Court), annulled a court-appointed expert's report after the employer, in a motion for clarification, reported a hidden sentence at the foot of a page instructing artificial intelligence to contest the report only superficially and not to question the files it cited, according to Diário de Justiça. The expert confirmed the text but said it came from teaching material about AI and was inserted by accident; the court's IT section concluded that it had been formatted deliberately to be invisible. The judge said AI had not been used to write the judgment and that the text did not directly influence it, but annulled the report, later submissions and the judgment, ordered a new examination by another expert without AI tools, fined the expert 5% of the value of the case for bad-faith litigation, cancelled the expert's fees and removed the expert from the court's register. The decision, dated 12 October 2026, can be challenged.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 1 source · Added 30/10/2026

14 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified image tool

Bahia police say four teenagers extorted a girl with an intimate image made with AI; she paid R$8,300 and police recovered R$6,300

A 12-year-old girl in Vitória da Conquista, in the south-west of Bahia, Brazil, was threatened from 14 October 2026 by a 15-year-old who said he had intimate images of her and demanded money not to post them on social media. Frightened, she secretly took R$8,300 from money her father kept and handed it over; the suspect then demanded a further R$10,000. According to the Bahia Civil Police, its investigation found that the image used in the threats had been produced with artificial intelligence to simulate intimate content of the girl. On 23 October police identified the 15-year-old and three other adolescents aged 14 to 16 as suspects, recovered R$6,300 and an electric bicycle bought with part of the money, and returned the money to her father. The police opened a juvenile offence procedure and sent it to the Childhood and Youth Court. How police established that the image was AI-made is not disclosed.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026

Feb 2026 to Oct 2026ChinaUnidentified video tool

Shanghai police say man posted AI-generated videos of his father gravely ill while borrowing over 1.7 million yuan from friends

Shanghai police said on 26 October 2026 that officers in Putuo district had detained a man on suspicion of fraud after police were called on 16 October to a dispute between him and people he owed money to; officers brought him and three creditors, whom police describe as his friends, to the station. According to the police account relayed by ThePaper and China News Service, from 2019 he had borrowed from classmates and friends on a series of false pretexts, later saying his father had cancer and then that his father had died, and the borrowing totalled more than 1.7 million yuan, nearly all lost on the stock market. Police said he confessed that every pretext was invented, and that to make the scam more credible he used AI to generate short videos of his father gravely ill in bed and posted them on his WeChat Moments feed; a Hong Kong relay of the police account words this more cautiously, saying the related photos and videos should be AI-generated, and adds that his father knew nothing of it. The tool used, how many people saw the videos and how much was borrowed after they were posted are not reported. The man is in criminal detention while the investigation continues.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026

Apr 2026Event location unknownUnidentified video tool

Saxony, Germany: police say a woman lost more than 1 million euros to investment fraud after an AI-generated fake Markus Lanz talk-show video

Chemnitz police said in a media release on 6 July 2026 that a woman from central Saxony had lost more than 1 million euros to investment fraud. According to the release, in April 2026 she came across what police call an AI-generated video of the ZDF talk show Markus Lanz, in which a supposed financial expert promoted a linked investment platform; after she registered, callers posing as a broker persuaded her over months to transfer sums from almost 10,000 euros to more than 460,000 euros. She reported the fraud on Saturday 4 July 2026 and the criminal police opened a fraud investigation. The release does not say how police established that the video was AI-generated.

Core concern High reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/10/2026

Sept 2026 to Oct 2026VietnamChatGPT (reported)

Vietnam: police say a food-company director used ChatGPT to design labels passing canned pork off as a Lang Son specialty; buyers say they received bones

Tuoi Tre reported on 18 October 2026 that buyers in Vietnam who ordered boxes of khau nhuc (braised pork belly), sold online as a specialty of That Khe in Lang Son province, found pork-trotter bones and pig skin. One buyer told Tuoi Tre that the seller refused to take back the opened boxes. On 26 October the Lang Son market-management agency, citing verification by Lang Son and Hanoi police, said the director of a Hanoi food company had used ChatGPT to design labels reading 'Khau nhuc That Khe Lang Son', printed them and put them on canned pork the company had already made, because the product had not sold under its own label. About 150 relabelled boxes were sold from September; many buyers asked for returns, and on 2 October the director stopped production and destroyed the remaining stock. Hanoi police opened a case file. The director is not named here.

Core concern Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 27/10/2026

23 Oct 2026SpainPangram AI-text detector

Publisher suspends presentations of its prize-winning novel for review after an El País Pangram check reported 99% AI text; the author denies using AI

El País checked the winning novel of the first Almadía Ventosa-Arrufat short-novel prize (20,000 euros; the rules banned generative AI) with the Pangram AI-text detector, which scored 99% of the roughly 26,000-word text as AI-generated, according to outlets relaying the investigation. El País passed its suspicions to the Mexican publisher Almadía, which on Friday 23 October 2026 announced a detailed review, saying it would not anticipate conclusions, and suspended all activities presenting the book, including a planned tour in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Cádiz. The publisher said the Peruvian author had declared in his contract and personally that he did not use AI, and that neither the jury nor its editors had seen signs of AI use. In a statement on Instagram reported by La Nación on 29 October 2026, the author said he conceived, wrote and revised the novel without generative AI tools and was gathering earlier manuscript versions, his notebook and research materials to give to the publisher for its review. Writers objected that a detector score is not conclusive proof of authorship. Whether AI was used is unestablished.

Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 25/10/2026

18 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified AI tool

São Luís (Brazil): Federal Police arrest Bar exam candidate they say used a phone linked to an AI tool to cheat

The Federal Police arrested a man in the act during the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) Exame de Ordem in São Luís, Maranhão, on Sunday 18 October 2026, according to the police account reported by Metrópoles and Migalhas. Police say officers sent to the exam venue after a criminal complaint about possible fraud found him using a mobile phone integrated with an artificial-intelligence tool to cheat. He was booked in the act for fraud in an exam of public interest and released after paying bail. Police said the investigation continues into the extent of the attempt and whether others took part. The reports do not name the AI tool, say whether it produced answers, or report an exam disqualification or charging decision.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 24/10/2026

Aug 2026 to Sept 2026TaiwanMicrosoft Copilot (reported)

Taipei District Court fines a litigant NT$30,000 for abusive retrial petitions that pasted in Copilot conversations, CTWANT reports

CTWANT reported on 22 October 2026 two rulings of the Taipei District Court in Taiwan. In August 2026 a civil division dismissed a retrial petition into which, it said, the petitioner had only pasted his conversations with Microsoft Copilot's generative AI; it said this was not in itself impermissible but that retrial grounds had not been lawfully stated, and that his copying of online news articles into Copilot and then of the whole exchange into his filing was a statement of his opinion and not objective evidence. He petitioned again and, in September 2026, a three-judge panel of another civil division said the new petition appeared to be generative AI conversation content placed in the filing, found that he had repeatedly petitioned on the same or similar grounds with a malicious purpose of wasting judicial resources, and fined him NT$30,000 under Article 249-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, warning that further abusive filings could bring a heavier fine. CTWANT describes it as the first court fine in Taiwan for abusive litigation with AI. The underlying claim, about fraudsters' misuse of his mobile number, had already been finally rejected. The rulings themselves were not inspected.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 23/10/2026

22 May 2026South KoreaUnidentified AI smart glasses

Seoul police refer test-taker who wore AI smart glasses with a pre-entered command to solve problems in a national qualification exam

Seoul Songpa police referred a man in his 20s to prosecutors without detention on suspicion of obstruction of business and breaching the National Technical Qualifications Act, police said on 22 October 2026. According to the police account reported by Yonhap, Hankook Ilbo and Newsis, he sat the Information Processing Engineer exam administered by the Human Resources Development Service of Korea on 22 May 2026 wearing smart glasses with AI functions, after entering in advance a command asking the linked smartphone app to solve the problems. An invigilator spotted a camera lens and an indicator light on the glasses frame and caught him during the exam. Police said forensic examination of his phone found no sign that he colluded with anyone or leaked the questions. The reports do not say whether the AI produced any answers, name the glasses or the app, or report a prosecution decision.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026

20 Oct 2026BrazilUnidentified document-analysis tool

Brazil's Superior Court of Justice fines lawyers 20,000 reais over hidden commands aimed at AI in an appeal petition and refers them to the bar and prosecutors

On 20 October 2026 the First Panel of Brazil's Superior Court of Justice (STJ) ordered the lawyers acting in a special appeal (AREsp 3.095.458) to pay a fine of 20,000 reais for an act against the dignity of justice, after the court's case-processing office certified that the petition carried hidden text layers with commands addressed to automated AI processing, such as an instruction to draft a firm conclusion that the appeal should be admitted and granted. The panel also ordered a technical report on the concealment techniques and the communication of the case to the Brazilian bar (OAB) and the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office. One of the lawyers said the text was probably residue of content produced by an AI tool used to draft the petition and denied any intent to interfere. The court said the commands did not influence the outcome; the appeal was not admitted.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources · Added 22/10/2026

May 2026 to Jun 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image and voice tool

Oberbergischer Kreis police say a romance scammer sent a woman apparently AI-made images and voice messages; she paid a mid four-figure sum

The Oberbergischer Kreis police reported on 21 July 2026 that a woman had been in contact since mid-May with an unknown person posing as a widowed doctor from Ukraine, who exchanged chats, pictures and voice messages with her through a messaging service. On 23 June she transferred a mid four-figure sum the supposed doctor requested; bank staff held back a second, high four-figure transfer at the end of June. She reported the fraud on 20 July, and the police say first investigations showed that the pictures and voice messages she had received were apparently created with artificial intelligence.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 20/10/2026

26 Mar 2026 to 19 Aug 2026AustraliaUnidentified AI drafting tool

Fair Work Commission orders former Aldi worker to pay A$1,230 costs after his AI-drafted unfair dismissal claim kept arguing the wrong date

On 19 August 2026 a Deputy President of Australia's Fair Work Commission ordered a self-represented former Aldi store worker to pay A$1,230 towards Aldi's legal costs. The decision records that his unfair dismissal application, lodged on the evening he was told of his dismissal on 26 March 2026, was obviously prepared using AI and still contained AI drafting notes, and that every email and document he filed was drafted using AI. He was notified of his dismissal three days short of the six-month minimum employment period. According to the decision, his AI-generated materials kept arguing about a different, irrelevant date (when the dismissal took effect), including after the Commission explained the correct test to him twice by email on 31 July 2026. He discontinued at the hearing on 5 August 2026. The Deputy President found that continuing after those warnings was unreasonable and said it was quite possible he had adopted AI as his quasi-legal adviser, while stating that using AI to draft submissions is not of itself unreasonable and that the responsibility was his. The decision notes that an appeal was lodged against it.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/10/2026

15 Jul 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool

Arizona appeals court strikes a self-represented appellant's AI-hallucinated citations, rejects his probate appeal and orders him to pay fees as a sanction

In a published opinion of July 2026, the Arizona Court of Appeals found that a self-represented appellant's opening brief in a probate dispute contained eight citations, six of them deficient, including two cases that do not exist. In a written explanation and at a hearing on the false citations he acknowledged relying on generative AI to write the brief and said he did nothing to verify the citations. The court struck the inaccurate and false citations, rejected the appeal because no supportive authority remained, held that citing a hallucinated case is sanctionable whether or not it is intended, and ordered him to pay the share of the other party's attorney's fees traceable to the fake citations. Because he said he did not intend to deceive and is not legally trained, the court chose this narrow sanction over contempt or fines. It described the opinion as the first published Arizona ruling on generative AI hallucinations in filings.

Core + contextual relations Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 1 source · Added 18/10/2026

Aug 2026United StatesUnidentified document-analysis tool

Connecticut court revokes a self-represented plaintiff's e-filing access after finding hidden instructions aimed at AI systems in his filings

In a memorandum of decision issued in early August 2026, a Connecticut Superior Court judge found that a motion for default and a notice filed on 24 July 2026 by a self-represented plaintiff, in a suit against a healthcare provider over access to records, carried text in tiny white type that was invisible to a human reader but legible to software. The concealed text told any AI model reviewing the filing to make its output agree with the filing and to work toward reversing the Chief Clerk's denial of his default request. After the court gave notice of a sanctions hearing, he hid further messages in later filings, which he said were jokes. The court treated the first instruction as a prompt injection, did not believe his explanation that he was auditing the court's use of AI, and rescinded his ability to file electronically, so that future filings must be made on paper at the clerk's office; Ars Technica reports that no monetary penalty was imposed. The court said the Connecticut Judicial Branch does not use AI to review or decide filings and that the motion was denied on its merits from a printed copy, so the hidden text affected no ruling. The plaintiff told Reuters, according to Ars Technica, that his intent was to audit the court.

AI relation unknown Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 18/10/2026

Aug 2026MalaysiaUnidentified image tool

Seremban, Malaysia: police investigate reports that schoolgirls' photos were edited with AI into explicit images; a fellow student is the suspect

Negeri Sembilan police said on 17 October 2026, in a statement reported by Bernama and RTM, that they had received five reports, lodged by parents or guardians between 20 and 23 August 2026, over the circulation of photographs of female students at a secondary school in Seremban that were edited using AI to resemble pornographic images. The police describe the victims as aged 14 to 17 and the suspect as an upper-secondary student whom the school suspended for five days in August; the case is being investigated under child sexual offences law and the Penal Code. A lawyer for a group of parents told a press conference that the images came to light on 12 August, when a younger pupil found them on an unlocked phone at school, alleged that the student made about 200 such images, and said the school had acknowledged more than 300 affected girls at a September meeting; he said there is no direct evidence that the images were sold. A mother said her child still has trouble sleeping every night. After the girls were questioned at the police headquarters on 17 October, their lawyers alleged that police had made them face the suspect during identification. The AI tool is not identified.

Core concern High reported severity Involving minors Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 18/10/2026

31 Mar 2026 to 11 Sept 2026United StatesIrys (reported)

Los Angeles judge sanctions State Farm's outside lawyer $999.99 over motions citing non-existent cases; the lawyer said she prepared them with the AI tool Irys

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ordered a senior associate at Musick, Peeler & Garrett, the outside firm defending State Farm in a homeowner's lawsuit over a fire-damaged home, to pay a $999.99 sanction after the associate's motions in limine cited cases, quotations and holdings that did not exist, Law360 reported on 14 September 2026. In a declaration reproduced by Reason's Volokh Conspiracy, the associate said she used an AI program called Irys to prepare the motions, did not check some of the citations, and wrongly believed the program was cite-checked through the firm's Westlaw subscription; she confirmed seven non-existent case citations across eight motions. The plaintiff's lawyers found the citations and raised them at a status conference on 7 August 2026. The firm acknowledged citations that appeared to be AI hallucinations, and its lead trial counsel apologised to the court and the plaintiff. According to Law360, the judge had considered up to $5,000, and the amount set is one cent below the level at which California law requires a court to notify the State Bar.

Core concern Low reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 17/10/2026

Jul 2026Event location unknownUnidentified image tool

Woman says a classmate sent an AI-undressed image of her to his contacts; he says his account was hacked, and police refused a case pending an examination

A 23-year-old woman told the news site Kaktus.media that in July 2026 she learned that acquaintances had received a nude image of her made with AI from her photograph, and that the sender was a classmate. She says he first told her an app had generated and sent the image by itself, then admitted that he had undressed her Instagram photo through AI himself. In a written statement to the outlet the accused says he used a Telegram bot offering AI photo processing in May or June 2022 and was shocked by the result, and that the images were sent from his Telegram account on the night of 11 to 12 July 2026 by people who had hacked it. The woman says she suffered severe psychological stress and harm to her reputation. She filed a complaint with a district police department on 21 July; after she complained to the prosecutor's office the matter moved to another district department. That department told Kaktus.media that, because the review period expired before expert results arrived, it had refused to open a criminal case and had ordered a new examination. Her lawyer says four motions filed on 5 August have gone unanswered.

Core concern Medium reported severity Investigation Opened

AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 17/10/2026

May 2026BrazilGalileu

Pará labour court fines two lawyers about R$84,000 over hidden instruction aimed at the court's Galileu AI; the lawyers deny manipulating the decision

In May 2026 a judge of the 3rd Labour Court of Parauapebas, in the Brazilian state of Pará, fined two lawyers about R$84,000 after text in white font on a white background was found in a document they filed for a worker in a labour claim. According to the sentence as reported by G1, the hidden text was detected while the judgment was being drafted with Galileu, a generative AI tool the labour courts use to help judges and staff draft sentences, and its evident intention was to make the AI produce a superficial defence or a compromised draft judgment. The judge called the technique prompt injection. The lawyers said they disagreed with the decision and that there was never any command to manipulate the judge's decision, describing the text as an attempt to protect their client from the AI; one of them said she did not work on labour cases. In October 2026 the regional labour court announced that a Connecticut Superior Court judge had cited the decision when sanctioning a litigant for misuse of AI.

AI relation unknown Medium reported severity Regulatory Action

AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 16/10/2026

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: 11/11/2026. Dataset available under CC BY 4.0.