AI regulation in Bangladesh (2026)

Bangladesh's ICT Division published a non-binding National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in March 2020, identifying seven priority sectors (public services, agriculture, health, finance, manufacturing, education, mobility) and six strategic pillars including ethics, privacy and regulation. It was aspirational and largely unimplemented due to subsequent political disruptions.

The ICT Division published Draft v1.1 and Draft v2 of the National AI Policy 2026-2030 on aipolicy.gov.bd, with public consultation closing 8 February 2026. The policy adopts a four-tier risk classification (prohibited, high-risk, limited-risk, low-risk), prohibits mass surveillance and social scoring, mandates algorithmic impact assessments for high-risk systems, and proposes a National AI Advisory Council and a National AI Centre of Excellence (NAICE). As of May 2026, no gazette notification of formal adoption has been located.

The Personal Data Protection Ordinance 2025 (Ordinance No. 61 of 2025) was gazetted in October 2025, establishing explicit consent requirements for data collection, rights over personal data, and cross-border data transfer rules. It provides partial AI-adjacent governance (e.g., data used to train or operate AI systems) but the ordinance itself contains no dedicated AI or algorithmic accountability provisions.

The Cyber Safety Ordinance 2025 (enacted May 2025, replacing the Digital Security Act 2018) and the National Data Governance Ordinance 2025 (gazetted October 2025) together form the interim statutory scaffolding relevant to AI deployment in public and digital contexts, but neither contains AI-specific rules. The draft AI policy explicitly notes AI-specific provisions were deferred to the forthcoming AI Act.

The Draft National AI Policy 2026-2030 directs the Ministry of Law to initiate drafting a comprehensive Artificial Intelligence Act by 2028, which would convert the risk-based framework into binding legislation. Bangladesh has also expressed intent to ratify the Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI (CETS No. 225) as part of this trajectory.

Bangladesh undertook a UNESCO AI Readiness Assessment (RAM) in collaboration with UNDP and the European Union, led by the ICT Division. The resulting report informed the 2026-2030 policy drafts and placed Bangladesh within a multi-partner responsible AI cooperation framework, though it is advisory rather than regulatory.