FARO stands for Frontline Record of Online Harms. Technology-related harm usually reaches the public one case at a time: a school in one country, a family in another, each easy to treat as an exception. This directory puts those cases side by side to help grassroots actors see where others face the same issues they do, and to help governments and regulators see the bigger picture of the harms occurring. The directory describes what its records contain. It does not measure how often these harms occur, and a country with few records may simply have little published about it.
How to use this directory: Topics are filterable for FARO reports that have already been created based on these incidents. The harms and response patterns shown are those featured there. To see the incidents used in a country-specific report, choose that country under Country report. Pick a pattern or evidence type to see on the map which countries have matching records. Click a country on the map or in the list to see its records below. Use the filter to search for keywords or specific sources.
Shaded countries have at least one record. Choose a pattern to see where it appears.
At least one matching recordNo matching recordSelected country
Shading shows only that a country has at least one record in this directory that matches your selection, and every shaded country looks the same on purpose. It says nothing about how often these harms occur there. Pattern filters only cover records classified so far, and small countries are easy to miss on a map, so use the list as well.
A 17-year-old female student with learning difficulties was drugged and sexually assaulted by two of her schoolmates, who recorded the act on video. After the video went viral on social media platforms, the school administration expelled the victim along with the perpetrators, causing her severe emotional distress and isolation.
A former A-Level student in Zimbabwe was charged after allegedly selling and digitally distributing a stolen national Economics examination paper ahead of the exam. Prosecutors alleged that the paper had been removed from a printing facility by a examinations council employee and then photographed and shared through WhatsApp in exchange for payment. The leaked paper reportedly spread widely among students before the examination, prompting arrests and legal proceedings.
A primary school teacher in the Mashonaland West region of Zimbabwe was sentenced to 12 months in jail for multiple counts of indecent assault against pupils in his class. Among these counts, the teacher showed pornographic material on his mobile phone to an 11-year-old female student during lesson time. The student and other class victims experienced trauma and subsequently reported the incidents, leading to the teacher's arrest and prosecution.
A senior pupil was filmed assaulting a junior pupil while other students recorded the incident. The video circulated online leading to disciplinary proceedings.
A high school student in Zimbabwe had intimate, naked photographs shared to a school WhatsApp group by a former boyfriend. As a result, the student experienced severe fear, stopped attending school, and contemplated suicide.
A video showed teachers allegedly assaulting a student on a school bus. The footage triggered a government investigation and possible criminal proceedings.
A high school student in Zimbabwe was targeted in a class WhatsApp group by classmates who created messages mocking the student's spoken Ndebele and calling them derogatory names. The harassment caused the student to experience embarrassment and have a difficult time fitting into the school.
Zimbabwe
Technology in Education
SHIELD Interview
SHIELD - APS
17/10/2026
Educators reported discovering students using AI companion systems while parents and staff remained unaware. The consequence described was unsupervised emotional engagement with AI systems. This is a personal interview. Source available to SHIELD.
During November 2024, students at a university campus in Zimbabwe were targeted by an OTP phishing scam where scammers tricked users into sharing their login verification pins to hijack their accounts. As a result, several students were locked out of their WhatsApp accounts, causing them to miss class group chats, lose communication with lecturers regarding dissertations, and experience business disruptions on WhatsApp Business.
A 16-year-old male student in Zimbabwe suffered a severe privacy violation and intense public exposure after a video depicting an inappropriate encounter between him and his teacher was leaked and circulated widely on social media [1.1]. The viral spread of the footage triggered national outcry and public debate regarding the student's conduct, resulting in a child-protection investigation and the arrest of the teacher.
A female high school student was physically assaulted and had her uniform torn by classmates who recorded the incident on a mobile phone. The video of the attack was subsequently uploaded to and circulated on YouTube, causing the student to be publicly exposed and humiliated.
About the records
Each record is a short summary of an incident described in a public source or collected through an interview by SHIELD or its partners. Records are reviewed by people before they appear here. Names and identifying details are removed: where a person appears, a role, age band and gender stand in for the name, and dates and places for minors are generalised. Every record links to its original source and shows the date that link was last checked. Records are classified with shared harm categories. The classification is SHIELD's own, so it can differ from how a source describes the incident.
Using the directory
You are welcome to read, link to and quote individual records with credit to FARO. Please do not copy, scrape or republish the dataset in bulk, or use it to train or test automated systems, without written permission. To ask for permission, use the SHIELD contact form. The original sources keep their own rights, and the link on each record leads to them.
How to cite
SHIELD-APS. Frontline Record of Online Harms (FARO). DIRECTORY-URL. Accessed [date]. To cite a particular selection, use the web address shown after you set the filters.
When you rely on the facts of an incident, cite the original source it links to. When you rely on the classification, the patterns or the country report, cite FARO. Please describe the records as documented incidents and do not present counts or country coverage as how often these harms happen. A country with few records may simply have little published about it.
Corrections and removals
If a record is wrong, a link no longer works, or you are described in a record and want it changed or removed, use the SHIELD contact form and include the title of the record. We review each request and update or remove the record where the request is justified.
Report an incident
Know of a documented incident that belongs here? Send it through the incident form. A public source, such as a news report, a court or regulator decision, or a research publication, helps us verify it quickly. Submissions without a public source are kept anonymous and are not tied to named products or companies. Please leave out the names of children and of anyone who has not agreed to be named. Submissions are reviewed before anything is published, and sending one does not guarantee a record.
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To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
