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Deepfake Images of Australian Teacher Hannah Grundy and 25 Others Created and Circulated Online by Former Friend

9 news reports Snapshot 7 Sep 2026

In brief

An AI system built by Deepfake Technology Developers and deployed by Andrew Thomas Hayler allegedly harmed Hannah Grundy, Colleagues Of Hannah Grundy and 1 other.

Risk domain
Malicious Actors & Misuse Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
Occurred
Coverage
9 reportsJun 2024 - Oct 2024

What happened

Australian teacher Hannah Grundy discovered her face had been superimposed onto pornographic images using AI deepfake technology, which were shared online alongside personal details. A former trusted friend, Andrew Thomas Hayler, was found responsible, targeting 26 women, including Grundy and close friends, over two years. Hayler pleaded guilty to multiple charges and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Laws that address this harm

Policy angle: Classified under Malicious Actors & Misuse (Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation) in the MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy; 5 recorded instruments address this use case.

Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).

News reports (9)

Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.

  1. Sydney bartender Andrew Hayler jailed after sharing digitally altered images of women on porn site
    abc.net.au · Ruby Cornish
  2. Hannah found deepfake porn of herself online. But the most disturbing revelation was still to come
    abc.net.au · Ruby Cornish
  3. How a young Aussie teacher became the target of vile deepfake images
    dailymail.co.uk · Ashley Nickel
  4. 'I found deepfake porn of myself online. Then I found out who was responsible.'
    mamamia.com.au · Libby-Jane Charleston
  5. Teacher’s shock discovery: Close friend responsible for sharing her deepfake porn images
    nzherald.co.nz · Tammy Hughes
  6. Shock over revenge porn sicko: ‘Best friend’
    news.com.au · Tammy Hughes
  7. South Australia to introduce laws to tackle sexually explicit deep fakes
    9news.com.au · Samantha Hogan
  8. ‘You look cute’: Police officer’s disgraceful remark to deepfake porn victim
    news.com.au · Natalie Brown
  9. Justice for Hannah Grundy – A Landmark Victory Against Online Abuse For Our Client
    obriensolicitors.com.au · Nicole Byrne

Who was involved

Alleged deployer
Andrew Thomas Hayler
Alleged harmed party
Hannah Grundy, Colleagues Of Hannah Grundy, Former Friends And Acquaintances Of Andrew Thomas Hayler

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

Causal entity
Human
Intent
Intentional
Timing
Post-deployment
Harm level
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Sectors
—
Countries
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Risk entries describing this failure mode

Entries from the MIT AI Risk Repository coded to subdomain 4.3.

  • Cheating/plagiarism

    "Cheating/plagiarism - Use of another person’s or group’s words or ideas without consent and/or acknowledgement."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • IP/copyright loss

    "IP/copyright loss - Misuse or abuse of an individual or organisation’s intellectual property, including copyright, trademarks, and patents."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Financial and business

    "Financial and Business - Use or misuse of a technology system in a manner that damages the financial interests of an individual or group, or which causes strategic, operational, legal or financial harm to a business or...

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Impersonation/identity theft

    "Impersonation/identity theft - Theft of an individual, group or organisation’s identity by a third-party in order to defraud, mock or otherwise harm them."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Dehumanisation/objectification

    "Dehumanisation/objectification - Use or misuse of a technology system to depict and/or treat people as not human, less than human, or as objects."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Defamation/libel/slander

    "Defamation/libel/slander - Use of a technology system to create, facilitate or amplify false perception(s) about an individual, group, or organisation."

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Misinformation and Manipulation

    "Recent studies have demonstrated that LLMs can be exploited to craft deceptive narratives with levels of persuasiveness similar to human-generated content (Pan et al., 2023b; Spitale et al., 2023), to fabri- cate fake n...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

  • Cybersecurity

    "LLMs may exacerbate cybersecurity risks in various ways (Newman, 2024). Firstly, LLMs may significantly amplify the effectiveness of deceptive operations aimed at tricking people into disclosing sensitive information or...

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

Incidents in the same risk subdomain

All incidents in this subdomain

Source record: incident #908 on the AI Incident Database · all 9 reports