Artificial Intelligence - Bahrain

A standalone 38-article AI Regulation Law was unanimously approved by the Shura Council in April 2024 and seeks to regulate development and deployment of AI systems, create an AI oversight unit, and set licensing, civil liability and administrative penalties. It remains under review in the Council of Representatives and is not yet enacted.

In a written letter to Parliament the government argued existing laws already address many of the bill's aims and that its scope is too narrow (applying only to entities based in Bahrain, unlike the extraterritorial Personal Data Protection Law), proposing a 'regulatory sandbox' for safe AI testing as a more practical alternative.

The Information & eGovernment Authority issued the General Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence (Version 1.0), approved 20 May 2025, mandatory for all government entities. It is built on four pillars: policies/legislation compliance, AI adoption and use, awareness and education, and local/international cooperation.

Alongside the national policy, Bahrain adopted the GCC Guiding Manual on the Ethical Use of AI, a regional non-binding code intended to steer responsible and ethical AI deployment across government and the wider economy.

Public-sector AI use must comply with Bahrain's existing legal framework, including the Personal Data Protection Law, the Law on Protection of State Documents and Information, the Open Data Policy, and the GCC AI Ethics guideline.

The Central Bank of Bahrain operates a regulatory sandbox allowing supervised experimentation of AI-driven FinTech solutions, and a draft National AI Strategy reached advanced development with a cross-government national workshop held on 9–10 September 2025.