Research: bots made 76% of responses to 2023 UK vape consultation

Mixed · 2Research published on 27 October 2026 in the journal Tobacco Control says that about three-quarters of responses to the UK government's 2023 consultation on smoking and vaping laws were generated by bots. 1 2 Mixed · 2The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) identified 90,835 of the 118,756 responses it received, or 76%, as bot-submitted. 1 2 Mixed · 2The responses were often duplicated many times and sent at high frequency from a small number of IP addresses. Nearly all answered the same question, opposing restrictions on disposable vapes. 1 2

Mixed · 2The study's authors are the health policy experts Dr Nason Maani of the University of Edinburgh and Prof Anna Gilmore of the University of Bath, according to the Guardian. GB News attributes the work to researchers at the University of Edinburgh, who used published government reports and Freedom of Information responses from the DHSC. 1 2 Mixed · 2The researchers call it the first documented instance of large-scale automated interference in a formal public health policy consultation. The Guardian adds that it is thought to be the first coordinated attempt to use AI to derail UK health policymaking. 1 2 Right · 1The researchers said the scale and consistency of the submissions suggested a coordinated campaign. They stressed they could not establish who organised it, why, or whether commercial interests were involved, and could not independently verify the government's bot-detection methods. This detail appears in GB News. 2

Mixed · 2The DHSC excluded the automated responses from its decision-making. GB News reports that almost eight in ten valid respondents then backed restrictions. 1 2 Mixed · 2Keir Starmer's Labour government inherited the bill from Rishi Sunak's Conservative government in 2024 and passed it. GB News says the Tobacco and Vapes Act received Royal Assent in April, that a disposable vape ban came into force in June 2025, and that the tobacco sales ban for anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 starts from January next year. 1 2 Mixed · 2A DHSC spokesperson said its controls to prevent manipulation of consultations "worked effectively in this case", that the fake responses were removed, and that the department will stay alert to such interference. 1 2

Mixed · 2Maani warned that future campaigns may be harder to catch and could make "a handful of powerful interests" look like a mass movement. The researchers' paper stresses the need for better detection, especially where screening is weak. 1 2 Left · 1The Guardian quotes Caroline Cerny of Action on Smoking and Health, who cited the tobacco industry's history of undermining public health regulation. It also quotes Azzurra Moores of Demos, who called the findings "pretty alarming" and said there is no single fix. 1 Right · 1GB News compares the case with a US scandal in which investigators found nearly 18 million of 22 million responses to a 2017 internet regulation consultation were fake. New York Attorney General Letitia James reported this in 2021. 2