Description: A Welsh teenager reportedly endured a nearly four-year online impersonation campaign in which another teenager created fake social media accounts using her photographs and, later, AI-generated images depicting her. The campaign reportedly attracted more than 100,000 followers, led strangers to believe they knew the victim, and resulted in a High Court settlement and damages award.
Editor Notes: Timeline notes: The incident ID date is 07/13/2026, based on the earliest identified public documentation that the impersonation campaign had incorporated AI-generated imagery because the date when that technology was introduced was not disclosed. The catfishing campaign itself reportedly began in approximately 2022 and continued into 2026. The incident ID was created on 07/15/2026.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Deepfake technology developers , Synthetic media generation technology developers and Synthetic image generation technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Elha-Mai Weston , Deepfake creators , Catfishers , Online impersonators and Synthetic media creators, which harmed Sasha Davies , Victims of catfishing , Victims of deepfake abuse , Targets of online impersonation , teenagers , Minors and Epistemic integrity.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Synthetic media generation technology , Deepfake technology , Synthetic image generation technology , Social media platforms , Snapchat , TikTok , Tinder and Facebook
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1592
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2026-07-13
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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A statement in open court was read out today before Mr Justice Fordham in Davies v Weston, following the acceptance of a settlement offer which consisted of the making of the statement in open court on behalf of both parties, the payment of…
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A teenage student subjected to a four-year "catfishing" nightmare after her identity was stolen by another teenage girl in her town has won a £10,000 High Court damages payout.
Starting when she was only 16, Sasha Davies was targeted by "co…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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