Headlines
Dutch watchdog warns voters against using AI chatbots ahead of election
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on October 21, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
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Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on October 21, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
The Dutch regulator warns voters against AI chatbots for election advice, citing bias towards major parties and unreliable guidance.
By Alessandro Parodi
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -The Dutch data regulator on Tuesday warned voters against using AI chatbots ahead of the national election, saying the platforms give unreliable advice and push them towards two major parties on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
While 15 different parties hold seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament at present, chatbots told voters in 56% of cases to choose between the far-right Freedom Party or the Labour-Green Left coalition.
The parties are on track to take 20% and 16% of the vote on October 29, respectively, according to opinion polls.
"Chatbots may seem like clever tools, but as a voting aid, they consistently fail," the Dutch data protection watchdog's vice-chair Monique Verdier said in a statement, describing their operation as "unclear and difficult to verify".
The agency said it had tested four major chatbots, without disclosing which ones, and found that even when fed the campaign platform of a smaller party, the chatbots still advised voting for one of the two major parties in some of the cases.
The election is taking place months after the Freedom Party's exit triggered the collapse of the right-wing coalition, which did not include the Labour or Green parties, and is seen as a contest between either a new all-conservative government or a more centrist or centre-right coalition.
The EU member is led by a minority caretaker government.
The watchdog did not say how many Dutch voters it thinks are using chatbots for voting advice but said there was a "growing number". Over 13 million people are eligible to vote in the election.
(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi and Toby Sterling; Editing by Muvija M)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans.
Data protection involves safeguarding important information from corruption, compromise, or loss, ensuring privacy and compliance with regulations.
A chatbot is a software application designed to simulate human conversation through text or voice interactions, often used in customer service.
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