The public record

Where automated decisions went wrong

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.

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4,442 incidentspress and self-reported

Page 69 of 186

Press reportingSelf-reported: a person’s own public post · 10 creditsSelf-reported: told to us directly · 25 credits

WF-DB4LFVHappened 1 May 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Open Rights Group files GDPR complaint over Meta's AI training on user data
The Open Rights Group has filed a complaint with the UK's Information Commissioner's Office alleging that Meta's plans to train its AI on Facebook and Instagram user data breach the UK GDPR. The group says the policy would affect more than 50 million UK users, that Meta lacks a legitimate interest, and that it has not offered a proper opt-out. Meta paused the plans in mid-June but says its approach complies with European law.
Company
Meta
10 source articlesstandard.co.uk
WF-AW8J1OHappened 1 Sep 2021Live 5 Oct 2026
Audit of LAION-400M finds sexual violence, racial slurs, and stereotypes in dataset
An audit of the LAION-400M dataset by Abeba Birhane and colleagues at University College Dublin and University of Edinburgh found that its automated curation using CLIP failed to remove sexually explicit images, racial slurs, and stereotypes. The authors' queries for terms like 'latina', 'Korean', and 'Indian' returned pornography and sexual violence, while 'CEO' returned only men and 'terrorist' returned images of Middle Eastern men. The dataset's compilers used CLIP to filter web-scraped image-text pairs, but CLIP's own web-trained biases allowed harmful content through. The findings raise concerns that models trained on LAION-400M would inherit these shortcomings.
Company
LAION-400M team
AI system
LAION-400M
7 source articlesinfo.deeplearning.ai
WF-DUBJJBLive 5 Oct 2026
Model Kanchan Nagar sends legal notice over deepfake ad by Yatra Online
Kanchan Nagar, a professional model, issued a legal notice to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) after Yatra Online Limited allegedly used an AI-generated deepfake image of her face in an advertisement without her consent. The advertisement, published in a national daily, bore a striking resemblance to Nagar's image. Nagar called for regulatory intervention to address the misuse of deepfake technology in advertising.
Company
Yatra Online Limited
3 source articlesindiatoday.in
WF-ZD7HFHHappened 1 Jan 2022Live 5 Oct 2026
Network Rail denies using AI cameras to detect passengers' emotions
Network Rail conducted a trial of AI cameras at major stations in 2022 that analysed demographic details and reportedly assessed emotions. Documents obtained by Big Brother Watch indicate the system was capable of determining whether a passenger was happy, sad or angry, with potential use for measuring satisfaction and advertising. Network Rail denied that any emotion analysis took place and stated the image analysis for demographic details has ended. Big Brother Watch has submitted a complaint to the Information Commissioner about the trial.
Company
Network Rail
AI system
Amazon Rekognition
7 source articlesindependent.co.uk
WF-X5YWYDLive 5 Oct 2026
Users jailbreak Luma Labs Dream Machine to generate porn
Users have jailbroken Luma Labs' Dream Machine, an AI video generator, to create explicit videos. The system's safeguards were bypassed to generate pornographic content. The videos are crude but demonstrate the potential for widespread AI-generated porn. Luma Labs' terms of service prohibit such content.
Company
Luma Labs
AI system
Dream Machine
3 source articles404media.co
WF-98RHPPLive 5 Oct 2026
Deepfake porn created of female student by college friend
A female engineering student, using the pseudonym 'Taylor Klein', had deepfake porn images of her created and distributed online by a man in her college friend group. She investigated and found circumstantial evidence identifying the culprit. The documentary 'Another Body' recounts her story. No legal or regulatory action is reported.
10 source articlestheguardian.com
WF-6BIZTNHappened 1 Mar 2014Live 5 Oct 2026
Duke University recorded students' faces without proper consent for public dataset
In March 2014, Duke University researchers recorded thousands of students walking to class on campus without their knowledge or proper consent, creating the DukeMTMC dataset of over 2 million image frames. The dataset was placed on a public website and downloaded by academics, security contractors, and military researchers globally, including Chinese companies and military academies linked to surveillance of ethnic minorities. The university took down the public website in April 2019 after an Institutional Review Board investigation found the study deviated significantly from the approved protocol. The lead researcher apologized, stating he took full responsibility for his mistakes.
Company
Duke University
AI system
DukeMTMC
10 source articlesdukechronicle.com
WF-WW27TMHappened 1 Jul 2023Live 5 Oct 2026
Anti-piracy group takes down Books3 dataset used to train Meta's LLaMA
The Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance sent a DMCA takedown request to The Eye, which hosted the Books3 dataset containing 196,640 copyrighted books. The dataset was used by Meta to train its LLaMA language model. Authors including Sarah Silverman have filed a class action lawsuit against Meta for using their works without permission. The dataset has been taken offline, but copies remain available.
Company
Meta
AI system
LLaMA
10 source articlesgizmodo.com
WF-GOZ2CCHappened 13 Jun 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Teenager arrested for AI deepfake images of Bacchus Marsh Grammar schoolgirls
A teenager in Victoria, Australia, was arrested and released pending further inquiries after allegedly using AI to create and distribute explicit deepfake images of around 50 female students at Bacchus Marsh Grammar. The images were reportedly generated from photos the girls had posted on social media. The school is offering counselling and assisting police. The incident has prompted renewed calls for stronger laws against non-consensual deepfake pornography.
Company
Bacchus Marsh Grammar
AI system
AI deepfake generation tool
6 source articlesedition.cnn.com
WF-QT6OIZHappened 28 Sep 2016Live 5 Oct 2026
Google used 11,000 novels without permission to train AI
Google researchers fed 11,000 novels, including works by authors Rebecca Forster and Erin McCarthy, into a neural network to improve conversational AI without seeking permission. The Authors Guild condemned the use as a 'blatantly commercial use of expressive authorship'. Google defended the practice as fair use, stating it does not harm authors. The authors expressed frustration at not being informed or compensated.
Company
Google
10 source articlestheguardian.com
WF-JD63J9Live 5 Oct 2026
Study finds driverless car AI worse at detecting darker-skinned pedestrians
A study by researchers from Georgia Tech found that facial recognition systems used in autonomous cars are up to 12% less accurate at detecting pedestrians with darker skin tones. The bias stems from a lack of diverse training data in the BDD100K database. The researchers warn that this could lead to higher accident rates for people with darker skin if not addressed.
AI system
BDD100K
9 source articlesdailymail.co.uk
WF-KO86VXHappened 1 Jul 2020Live 5 Oct 2026
MIT apologizes and pulls offline dataset that taught AI to use slurs
MIT permanently removed its 80 Million Tiny Images dataset after researchers discovered it contained thousands of images labeled with racist and misogynistic slurs. The dataset, used to train AI systems for object detection, was built by automatically scraping images from the internet using a list of nouns from WordNet that included derogatory terms. MIT apologized and urged the community to delete copies of the dataset.
Company
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
AI system
80 Million Tiny Images
10 source articlestheregister.com
WF-HF1YRWHappened 1 Sep 2023Live 5 Oct 2026
Xuhui police expand facial recognition surveillance to profile 1.1 million residents
The Xuhui District branch of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Public Security is expanding its Intelligent Image Recognition System, adding 2,500 facial recognition cameras and increased computing capacity to build profiles of residents and flag deviations. The project, contracted to US-sanctioned FiberHome, is designed to match each face to files on more than 50 million people. Officials say the system will analyse behaviour patterns and trigger early warnings.
Company
Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Public Security, Xuhui District Branch
AI system
Intelligent Image Recognition System
3 source articlesipvm.com
WF-OS2JRKHappened 21 Feb 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Meta’s BlenderBot 3 chatbot generates offensive content publicly.
Meta released its AI chatbot BlenderBot 3 for public testing in February 2024. Users reported that the chatbot generated anti-Semitic, racist, and conspiratorial responses. Meta acknowledged the flaws and said public feedback is essential for improvement. The incident reignited debate about the ethics of releasing underdeveloped AI systems.
Company
Meta
AI system
BlenderBot 3
6 source articlesnews.biharprabha.com
WF-P0VR2RHappened 2 Aug 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Florida official Sabrina Javellana victim of deepfake porn
Sabrina Javellana, a Filipino-American elected official in Florida, had her personal images altered into explicit deepfake content. The manipulated images were distributed online, causing her significant personal and professional harm. She sought help from law enforcement and a lawyer, but existing laws were insufficient at the time. Florida later passed Senate Bill 1798 to criminalize such acts, and the DEFIANCE Act has been introduced in Congress.
4 source articlesasianews.network
WF-8XLWG2Happened 7 Jun 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Perplexity AI's Pages feature accused of plagiarizing Forbes reporting
Forbes journalist John Paczkowski accused Perplexity AI's new "Perplexity Pages" feature of ripping off his reporting on Eric Schmidt's drone project. The feature generated a page that summarized the Forbes article without prominent source attribution. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas acknowledged the issue and said the feature would be improved.
Company
Perplexity AI
AI system
Perplexity Pages
10 source articlesx.com
WF-UP61IPLive 5 Oct 2026
Brazilian children's photos scraped into LAION-5B AI dataset without consent
Human Rights Watch found that LAION-5B, a dataset used to train AI tools, contains identifiable photos of Brazilian children scraped from the web without their knowledge or consent. The dataset includes names and locations of children. AI tools trained on LAION-5B have been used to create nonconsensual deepfakes, with at least 85 girls reporting harassment from classmates who used AI to generate explicit imagery. LAION, which manages the dataset, acknowledged the inclusion and pledged to remove the photos but disputed that the models can reproduce data verbatim.
Company
LAION
AI system
LAION-5B
7 source articleshrw.org
WF-14BFFDHappened 28 May 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Klarna CEO faces backlash for using AI to halve marketing team
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski tweeted that the company saved $10 million by using generative AI to reduce its in-house marketing team to half its previous size and cut external agency spending by 25%. The post sparked criticism on social media, with commenters calling the remarks 'ghoulish' and highlighting concerns about AI's impact on jobs. Klarna previously laid off 700 workers in 2022 and reduced headcount by 23% by end of 2023.
Company
Klarna
AI system
Midjourney, DALL-E, Adobe Firefly
6 source articlesuk.finance.yahoo.com
WF-CKRXGYLive 5 Oct 2026
Google and Bing surface nonconsensual deepfake porn in top search results
The article reports that Google and Bing search engines display nonconsensual deepfake pornographic images of female celebrities at the top of image search results when searching for women's names combined with "deepfakes" or general terms like "fake nudes". The search engines also return links to tools that advertise the creation of such material. Victims can request removal through forms, but the companies do not proactively search for and delist the content. Legal experts and advocates say the burden is on victims and the companies have the technical ability to do more.
Company
Google, Microsoft
AI system
Google Search, Bing Search
9 source articlesnbcnews.com
WF-O8OTB4Happened 21 May 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Eventbrite algorithm recommended illegal opioid sales to addiction recovery seekers
Eventbrite's recommendation algorithm promoted thousands of listings selling illegal prescription drugs like oxycodone and Xanax alongside addiction recovery events. The listings, which appeared in search results and related events, directed users to unlicensed online pharmacies. Eventbrite acknowledged the issue and removed the listings after WIRED alerted them.
Company
Eventbrite
AI system
Eventbrite recommendation algorithm
4 source articleswired.com
WF-CRO23THappened 6 Jun 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Microsoft sued after MSN circulates AI-generated fake article accusing Irish broadcaster of sexual misconduct
Dave Fanning, an Irish DJ and talk show host, is suing Microsoft and BNN Breaking after MSN featured an AI-generated article falsely claiming he faced trial for alleged sexual misconduct. The article was produced by BNN Breaking's AI system without human fact-checking and appeared on MSN's homepage for several hours before removal. Fanning alleges defamation and reputational damage. The lawsuit is pending.
Company
Microsoft
AI system
BNN Breaking
6 source articlesuk.news.yahoo.com
WF-6J4R0PHappened 1 Feb 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
OpenAI disrupts five covert influence operations using AI models
OpenAI terminated accounts linked to five covert influence operations from Russia, China, Iran, and Israel that used OpenAI's language models to generate deceptive content. The operations attempted to manipulate public opinion on topics including the Ukraine war and Gaza conflict, but did not achieve significant audience engagement. OpenAI shared threat indicators with industry peers.
AI system
OpenAI language models
9 source articlesopenai.com
WF-9FPGGAHappened 31 May 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
Adobe Stock offers AI-generated images inspired by Ansel Adams, violating its own ethics policy
The estate of Ansel Adams publicly criticised Adobe for offering AI-generated images on Adobe Stock that were 'inspired by' Adams' work, violating Adobe's own contributor terms that prohibit using artist names in prompts. Adobe acknowledged the violation and removed the images, but the estate claimed it had contacted the company multiple times since August 2023 without resolution.
Company
Adobe
AI system
Adobe Stock
4 source articlesdigitaltrends.com
WF-NCL4LXHappened 29 May 2024Live 5 Oct 2026
AI-generated 'All eyes on Rafah' image goes viral on social media
An AI-generated image depicting refugee tents spelling out 'all eyes on Rafah' was shared millions of times on Instagram and other platforms in late May 2024. The image was created by a small account based in Malaysia and was boosted by celebrities. The image went viral after an Israeli military strike on Rafah killed at least 45 people. The article does not report any harm caused by the AI system itself.
10 source articlestheguardian.com

Each incident is written from the reporting or the account it cites. A report is an allegation, not a finding.

Open Rights Group files GDPR complaint over Meta's AI training on user data

Audit of LAION-400M finds sexual violence, racial slurs, and stereotypes in dataset

Model Kanchan Nagar sends legal notice over deepfake ad by Yatra Online

Network Rail denies using AI cameras to detect passengers' emotions

Users jailbreak Luma Labs Dream Machine to generate porn

Deepfake porn created of female student by college friend

Duke University recorded students' faces without proper consent for public dataset

Anti-piracy group takes down Books3 dataset used to train Meta's LLaMA

Teenager arrested for AI deepfake images of Bacchus Marsh Grammar schoolgirls

Google used 11,000 novels without permission to train AI

Study finds driverless car AI worse at detecting darker-skinned pedestrians

MIT apologizes and pulls offline dataset that taught AI to use slurs

Xuhui police expand facial recognition surveillance to profile 1.1 million residents

Meta’s BlenderBot 3 chatbot generates offensive content publicly.

Florida official Sabrina Javellana victim of deepfake porn

Perplexity AI's Pages feature accused of plagiarizing Forbes reporting

Brazilian children's photos scraped into LAION-5B AI dataset without consent

Klarna CEO faces backlash for using AI to halve marketing team

Google and Bing surface nonconsensual deepfake porn in top search results

Eventbrite algorithm recommended illegal opioid sales to addiction recovery seekers

Microsoft sued after MSN circulates AI-generated fake article accusing Irish broadcaster of sexual misconduct

OpenAI disrupts five covert influence operations using AI models

Adobe Stock offers AI-generated images inspired by Ansel Adams, violating its own ethics policy

AI-generated 'All eyes on Rafah' image goes viral on social media