Bots flooded UK disposable-vape consultation, research finds

Bots generated roughly three-quarters of submissions to a 2023 UK government consultation covering disposable vapes, in an unsuccessful effort to obstruct the proposed ban, according to research reported by The Guardian. The findings put the integrity of public consultations under scrutiny, highlighting how automated responses can overwhelm a process intended to gather views from individuals and organisations.

Government records independently confirm the scale of the automated activity. The Department of Health and Social Care received 118,756 submissions to its consultation on creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping, identifying 90,835 as bot-generated and excluding them as fraudulent. That left 27,921 responses for analysis, rather than the much larger headline total.

The Guardian’s report describes the submissions as an AI-driven attempt to influence health policymaking and says the campaign failed to prevent the disposable-vape ban. An important distinction remains: the government’s published response confirms automated submissions, but identifying a response as bot-generated does not, by itself, establish which artificial intelligence technology produced it.

The consultation ran from October 12 to December 6, 2023, and covered tobacco restrictions, measures addressing youth vaping and enforcement. Disposable vapes were one component of that wider exercise, alongside questions about flavours, packaging and shop displays. The government’s response said participants whose submissions were retained strongly supported banning the sale and supply of disposable products.

The distinction between submissions received and responses accepted matters when interpreting such exercises. A flood of automated entries can create an apparent concentration of opinion without representing a comparable number of people. In this case, the published totals show why reporting the unfiltered volume alone would give a misleading picture of participation.

The policy subsequently moved beyond consultation. A UK-wide prohibition on selling and supplying single-use vapes took effect on June 1, 2025, with the government presenting it as a measure to address youth nicotine use and environmental waste. The restriction targets disposable devices rather than imposing a general ban on all vaping products.

Official business guidance says the rules apply to businesses and organisations supplying single-use vapes across the UK, although enforcement differs between the four nations. That practical framework is separate from the question of who attempted to influence the earlier consultation. The supplied account does not identify who organised or financed the automated campaign, and its scale alone cannot establish responsibility.

The episode leaves future consultation safeguards as the central policy-process question. The documented exclusion of fraudulent submissions shows that screening prevented those responses from entering the government’s analysis in this instance. The broader challenge is maintaining an accessible route for genuine participation while ensuring that automated volume is not mistaken for public support or opposition.