Incidents gathered from public reporting around the world. Each one links to the articles it came from. None of it is a finding that anyone broke the law.
Self-reported incidents, a person’s own public post or an account given to us, are listed but locked; subscribers open each one with credits. Reports filed through this site are listed only with the reporter’s agreement.
Press reportingSelf-reported: a person’s own public post · 10 creditsSelf-reported: told to us directly · 25 credits
Residents of Denver's Elyria-Swansea neighbourhood complained about noise from generators at a CoreSite data centre, according to Denverite.
Residents of the Great Oak subdivision in Prince William County, Virginia, told the Board of County Supervisors on 10 June 2025 that the low-frequency hum from cooling systems at nearby data centres, including Amazon Web Services sites, is still shaking their homes, while a draft county noise ordinance remained long delayed.
After a power failure, Vantage Data Centers ran its backup generators in Sterling, Virginia, for almost 24 hours on 16–17 July 2026. Resident Greg Pirio measured 60 decibels at his property line, above Loudoun County's 55-decibel night limit, and left his home because the fumes hurt his lungs; the state environmental regulator said it had no power to stop emergency generator use. Neighbours of Vantage's gas-turbine power centre have also put mattresses and plexiglass in their windows against a constant high-pitched whine.
Residents of Taman Nusa Batu and Kampung Cahaya Baru in Pasir Gudang, Johor, say construction of data centres next to their homes, including three by Singapore-based Racks Central, has filled their houses with fine dust and brought constant noise. One resident monitors the site with a drone. Residents say they were not told the land would become data centres and fear for their health and water supply.
Authorities ordered work to stop on a data centre project in Iskandar Puteri, Johor, Malaysia, after residents complained about its effects on the neighbourhood, according to the New Straits Times.
Austin Newsom, who lives across Route 33 from Amazon's second data centre campus in Louisa County, Virginia, sued Amazon over construction that began in March 2025. He reported loud noise around the clock, dust clouds from dump trucks, and tap water from his well turning muddy brown on and off for months. His neighbour's property was bought by Amazon.
The family of a 25-year-old worker who was electrocuted at the QTS data centre campus in Fayette County, Georgia, filed a wrongful death lawsuit, according to 11Alive.
The NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, sued xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech, alleging it ran dozens of methane gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, without a Clean Air Act permit to power its Colossus 2 AI data centre. The groups say the plant may be the largest industrial source of smog-forming nitrogen oxides in the Memphis area and that nearby, largely Black neighbourhoods bear the pollution. The US Justice Department later moved to have the case dismissed, citing national security.
Residents of Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant, Wisconsin, filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Microsoft over continuous noise from its $7.3 billion Fairwater AI data centre. The complaint describes a constant hum likened to a freight train, as well as construction noise and bright light at night, and says neighbours are kept indoors and lose sleep. Microsoft had held a public Q&A about the noise without offering a fix.
Residents of Dowagiac, Michigan, filed a class-action lawsuit against Alliance Cloud Services, a subsidiary of Hyperscale Data, over constant noise from the cooling fans of its data centre, which opened in 2022 as a digital-asset mining site and is being expanded for AI computing. Neighbours describe a vacuum-cleaner-like hum day and night that keeps them indoors and disrupts sleep. The city adopted an industrial noise limit and fined the operator, which disputes the measurements.
DataOne Data Center di Vineland Tuai Protes Warga, Microsoft Disorot - Telset.id
The DataOne data center in Vineland, New Jersey, is operating without permits, using gas turbines that cause air and noise pollution. It was built to supply computing power to Microsoft through a deal with Nebius, but residents were not informed until after construction began. Microsoft is facing criticism for its role in the project.
OpenAI内部Lily项目曝光：人工审核ChatGPT用户聊天记录 - 新浪财经
A report by 404 Media revealed that OpenAI uses human reviewers, called prompt reviewers, to assess anonymized ChatGPT conversations under an internal project named Project Lily. Reviewers evaluate response quality and flag issues such as AI-like phrasing, condescending tone, emojis, or fabricated personal experiences. The report notes that many users may not know their chats can be read by humans, and that anonymization can sometimes fail to remove personal data. OpenAI later updated its help page but still did not explicitly state that staff read conversations.
People transferred money as processing fees for old coin deals after seeing a deepfake video of MP Govindbhai Dholakia.
Kjøpte leilighet med datasenter i bakgården: – Ulevelig - E24
A couple bought a new apartment in Oslo and discovered a constant humming noise from a nearby data center after moving in. The developer Obos did not inform them about the noise, even though the data center had warned about it and neighbors had complained. The couple has hired a lawyer and wants to cancel the purchase or swap to another apartment.
New York'ta Tesla Model 3 eve çarptı! Fren izi bulunamadı: Autopilot şüphesi çok konuşuldu | Otomobil Haberleri - GZT
A Tesla Model 3 crashed through a porch and into the living room wall of a house in Chester, New York. Police found no brake or skid marks at the scene, prompting an investigation into whether the driver was asleep or the vehicle's Autopilot or Full Self-Driving system was active. The homeowner, who was resting on a couch, was thrown by the impact and suffered shoulder and back injuries.
The AI data center irrigated its lawn copiously during drought restrictions, impacting local residents who are under mandatory water conservation.
Poland’s brand chief resigns after backlash over AI-generated report TVP World
The data center's operations caused noise that disturbed nearby residents.
Data centers' electricity and water consumption raised utility bills for local residents.
The data center contaminated the well water of eight residents.
Deactivated: The human cost of Uber’s 12-year Nigeria experiment dailytrust.com
Collected voice and facial biometrics from job applicants during video interviews without consent
The data center generated noise that disturbed nearby residents.
The AI monitoring system flagged 14 minutes of inactivity, resulting in the woman's termination.
Each incident is written from the reporting or the account it cites. A report is an allegation, not a finding.
