An investigation published in Tobacco Control revealed that automated AI bots generated three-quarters of all submissions to the UK government’s 2023 consultation on disposable vapes. The coordinated campaign attempted to derail proposed anti-vaping legislation before health officials detected and purged the fake entries.
Health policy experts Dr. Nason Maani from the University of Edinburgh and Prof. Anna Gilmore from the University of Bath uncovered the operation. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) deployed bot-detection protocols after noticing thousands of identical submissions sent at high frequency from a small cluster of IP addresses.
Data Breakdown: Consultation Responses
The automated flood distorted initial consultation figures, representing the first documented instance of large-scale automated interference in UK public health policy.
| Submission Category | Number of Responses | Percentage of Total |
|---|---|---|
| Automated AI Bot Submissions | 90,835 | 76.5% |
| Legitimate Human Submissions | 27,921 | 23.5% |
| Total Recorded Submissions | 118,756 | 100.0% |
Astroturfing and Threats to Democratic Policy
All but two of the 90,835 bot submissions answered the identical question in the “smoke-free generation” consultation, registering opposition to the disposable vape ban. Researchers warn that this form of digital astroturfing creates the illusion of grassroots public pushback.
Dr. Maani warned of future risks: “The threat is that future campaigns become harder to catch, and what we can’t catch, we don’t know about. Such campaigns are a threat because they raise the possibility of a handful of powerful interests looking like a mass movement.”
Caroline Cerny, deputy chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), pointed to industry precedents: “Given the tobacco industry’s history of seeking to undermine public health regulation, we need to be alert to the risk that technological advances can be used to further commercial interests around health policy and put safeguards in place.”
Azzurra Moores, associate director at the thinktank Demos, noted that automated swarms threaten public trust: “If a consultation can be swamped like this, it stops telling policymakers what the public actually thinks. Interference can adapt faster than departments can update their checks.”
Government Action and Legislative Outcome
The DHSC confirmed its screening tools identified and removed the automated submissions from official reviews. Following the general election, the Labour government passed the Tobacco and Vapes Bill into law, formally prohibiting businesses from selling or supplying single-use disposable vapes across the UK.
