AI Bots Submit 90,000 Fake Responses to UK Vape Ban Consultation
The UK government blocked tens of thousands of AI-generated responses attempting to stop a ban on disposable vapes during a 2023 public consultation.
AI bots submitted tens of thousands of fake responses to a 2023 UK government consultation in an effort to block a ban on disposable vapes. Research published in the journal Tobacco Control found that 90,835 of the 118,756 total responses—roughly 76%—were machine-generated.
The Department of Health and Social Care identified the interference using bot-detection methods, noting that the submissions were frequently duplicated and originated from a small number of IP addresses. The agency excluded these automated responses from its decision-making process.
Following the consultation, the Labour government passed the tobacco and vapes bill into law, which implemented the ban on the sale and supply of disposable vapes. Researchers identified this as the first documented instance of large-scale automated interference in a formal UK public health policy consultation.
