SurveillanceMedium severity · automated estimate
AI bots flooded 2023 UK government consultation on disposable vapes ban
- Occurred
- Oct 29, 2026
- Published
- Oct 29, 2026
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
AI bots flooded a government consultation with tens of thousands of fake responses in a failed attempt to stop the UK’s ban on disposable vapes. Three-quarters of all the responses to the 2023 consultation on the tobacco and vapes bill wer ... (https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1790#8217)
Automated classification
Category confidence: 75%
Severity confidence: 80%
Classifier note (automated): AI bots used to flood government consultation with fake responses, representing a form of automated manipulation and potential surveillance abuse.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8