Spain moves to ban manipulative AI systems targeting gambling behaviour

The Spanish Government has approved a draft law on the governance of Artificial Intelligence, introducing new rules on AI systems, such as those designed to prevent behavioural influencing, including within gambling. It also aligns national legislation with the EU AI Regulation. The bill has now been submitted to Parliament to begin its legislative process.

Meanwhile, the European AI Regulation established eight prohibitions relating to subliminal techniques, vulnerability exploitation, biometric classification, social scoring, predictive surveillance, emotion recognition, facial scraping and real-time identification.

The regulation emphasises human oversight of systems, greater transparency, protection of minors and strict data privacy safeguards. It also introduces a risk-based classification system.

Among the provisions of the Spanish regulation, the government statement highlights a clear prohibition on AI systems that use subliminal or manipulative techniques to encourage harmful behaviours, including those related to online gambling.

It also provides a specific example, such as a chatbot that identifies users with gambling addiction and then uses subliminal techniques to encourage them to access an online gambling platform.

The regulation establishes a governance framework by designating authorities responsible for overseeing compliance. The central body is the Artificial Intelligence Supervisory Agency (AESIA), based in A Coruña in Galicia.

Several other market surveillance authorities will also have responsibilities. For example, the Bank of Spain will oversee financial system matters, the Spanish Data Protection Agency will oversee data related matters and the General Council of the Judiciary will oversee justice system matters.

The regulation also reinforces mandatory human oversight in AI systems that may affect fundamental rights and establishes a sanctions regime including fines of up to €35m or 7% of global turnover in the most serious cases.