148 Incidents. 10 Critical. A Crisis in Numbers.

NCADA's incident database has now reached 148 verified deepfake abuse incidents across the United States, and by scoring every one of them on a five point severity scale, we can say with certainty that this crisis is concentrated at the top — where the most egregious cases receive the weakest consequences.

The Numbers

10 incidents scored Critical, the highest severity rating, and these cases define what institutional failure looks like. A registered sex offender used AI to generate thousands of images of teenagers. An elementary school teacher targeted 10 year old students across 20 schools. A single perpetrator in New York created over 1,200 deepfake images. AI generated content depicted children as young as infants. And at Lancaster Country Day School, two boys manufactured 350 images of 59 classmates and received probation.

40 incidents scored Severe and another 68 scored Serious, which means fewer than one in ten cases registered as Low severity. The geographic concentration is equally damning: California leads with 15 cases, followed by Florida with 13, Texas with 10, and Pennsylvania and Iowa with 6 each — spanning more than 30 states with no region untouched.

The Pattern

By examining these 148 incidents together, a pattern emerges that no institution should accept as normal:

• 64 incidents targeted students in schools — from middle schools through high schools and including at least one elementary school.
• 19 incidents targeted school staff, with perpetrators creating deepfakes of teachers and principals.
• 12 lawsuits have been filed, including the first class action against an AI company for providing the tools used to generate abuse material.
• At least 10 cases resulted in no charges or grossly inadequate punishment, signaling to perpetrators that the legal system will not hold them accountable.

The perpetrators are getting younger and the victims are getting younger, while the tools are getting easier and the consequences remain a fraction of what the law allows.

What We Are Doing

By severity scoring every incident using a five factor rubric — victim count, victim age, volume of material, institutional response, and legal outcome adequacy — NCADA is building the evidentiary foundation that legislators and prosecutors need to justify stronger action. Going forward, any incident scoring Severe or Critical will trigger an automatic draft statement from this office, because the worst cases should not be allowed to disappear into local news cycles.

We are launching the NCADA Survivor Alliance, a national network connecting survivors and families across the states where these incidents occurred. Every dot on our incident map represents a community that went through this, and by connecting those communities, we are building the most credible advocacy force in the country.

We are calling on every state legislature that has not yet passed deepfake specific legislation to look at these 148 cases and explain to their constituents why they have not acted.

The Ask

To survivors and families: you are not alone, and joining the Survivor Alliance at ncadas.org/alliance connects you with others who understand what you are going through.

To legislators: 148 documented cases, 10 Critical. The question is what number would be enough.

To platforms: the TAKE IT DOWN Act enforcement deadline is May 19, 2026. Our scorecard is public.

To schools: 64 of these incidents happened on your watch, and NCADA offers free response protocols and policy templates that can prevent the next one from being handled the way Lancaster was.

Every entry in this database is a real person in a real place whose images were stolen and weaponized by someone they knew. We will keep counting, and we would rather stop.

— Annika Raj, Founder, National Coalition Against Deepfake Abuse