New study reveals 75% of respondents to Government's smoking and vaping laws consultation were bots

Three out of every four responses to a Government consultation on smoking and vaping laws were submitted by bots, a new study has revealed. More than 90,000 bogus submissions opposed plans to restrict disposable vapes, creating a misleading impression of public opinion. But after Government officials identified and excluded the fraudulent responses, almost eight in ten valid respondents backed restrictions. Researchers believe it is the first documented case of large-scale automated interference in a formal public health consultation. The Tobacco and Vapes Act received Royal Assent in April, paving the way for a ban on tobacco sales to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, from January next year. A separate ban on disposable vapes came into force in June 2025, while the Act also provides powers to restrict the flavours, packaging and marketing of e-cigarettes. The new study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, examined responses to a public consultation held in October 2023 before the legislation was introduced. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh analysed published Government reports and information obtained through Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Of the 118,756 submissions received, DHSC officials identified 90,835 — 76 per cent — as fraudulent. Officials found that responses were frequently duplicated and submitted at high speed from a small number of internet addresses. According to the study, all the bot-generated responses targeted a multiple-choice question opposing restrictions on disposable vapes. The same number claimed to have learned about the consultation through social media. Researchers said the scale and consistency of the automated submissions suggested a coordinated campaign, although they could not establish who was responsible. They said: “This appears to be the first documented instance of large-scale, automated interference in a formal public health policy consultation.” They added: “The scale and directional consistency of bot responses suggest a coordinated campaign, consistent with prior evidence of tobacco industry efforts to manipulate public consultations through mass coordinated submissions.” However, they stressed they could not establish who organised the submissions, their intentions or whether commercial interests were involved. They also acknowledged they could not independently verify the Government's bot-detection methods. The British findings echo a scandal in America, where investigators found that nearly 18 million of 22 million responses to a 2017 consultation on internet regulation were fake. American broadband companies had funded a campaign to scrap rules preventing internet providers from favouring some websites over others. But marketing firms working on the campaign submitted more than 8.5 million fake responses, using people's names without their knowledge. Another 9.3 million fake responses supported keeping the rules, most submitted using fictitious identities by a student operating automated software. The fraud was exposed in a report published by New York Attorney General Letitia James on May 6, 2021. Three marketing companies agreed to pay more than $4.4 million in penalties and repayments, although investigators found no evidence that the broadband companies knew their contractors were fabricating responses. In Britain, officials excluded the bogus vaping submissions before analysing the consultation results. But the Edinburgh researchers warned that increasingly sophisticated bots could make future interference harder to detect, particularly where public bodies lack adequate screening systems. They concluded: “As bot sophistication increases and public consultations expand across regulatory contexts, strengthening detection capacity and governance safeguards will be essential to maintaining the integrity of public health policymaking, particularly in lower-resource settings where screening infrastructure may be absent.” A DHSC spokesperson said: “We always have robust controls in place to prevent the manipulation of our public consultations and those controls worked effectively in this case. “As a result, the fake responses were removed and the consultation helped inform the landmark action we are taking to create a smoke-free generation. “We will remain alert to interference of this kind in future consultation processes and we will not be deterred from doing what is necessary to promote healthier living.” Follow related topics: