General Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence (National Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence)

Record BH-01

Issued by: Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA); approved by the Ministerial Committee for Information and Communication Technology (MCICT)
Jurisdiction: Bahrain
Level · region: National · Middle East & North Africa
Published / adopted: 2025-05-20
In force: 2025-05-20
Language: English

Summary

Government-wide policy that all Bahraini government entities must follow when adopting AI. Eleven principles include human decision-making (final decisions on important matters stay under human control), safety and prevention of harm, fairness, transparency and explainability, accountability, integrity and non-fabrication of data, privacy, and reliability and security of systems. Four pillars require compliance with data-protection, state-documents, cybercrime and open-data rules and the GCC AI ethics guideline; adoption of AI only in coordination with iGA, with regular audits and responsibility resting with officials rather than machines; staff training; and cooperation.

Safety topics

public-sector usehuman oversightaccountability & liabilitytransparency & labelling

Status notes

Approved by the Ministerial Committee for Information and Communication Technology (MCICT) at its meeting on 20 May 2025, from which date all government entities must comply; version 1.0 is the first release. iGA launched it publicly on 27 July 2025 as the 'National Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence', together with Bahrain's adoption of the Guiding Manual on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence Use in the GCC, issued by the GCC Ministerial Committee for eGovernment. The ICT Governance Committee approves updates and decides on exemption requests; iGA manages, updates and supervises the policy. It is an administrative policy that binds government entities, not legislation.

Sources

Open the official source https://www.iga.gov.bh/Media/Publications/National%20Digital%20Policies/General%20Policy%20for%20the%20Use%20of%20AI%20-%20%20Final%2030%20Jul%202025.pdf

Secondary source: https://www.iga.gov.bh/en/article/bahrain-launches-national-ai-policy-and-adopts-gcc-ethics-manual

Local copy

Archived. Last attempt 2026-10-18 04:08:13 UTC

Official source (third-party copy, not published) archive/BH-01/2026-10-12/official.pdf

Retrieved 2026-10-12 04:32:49 UTC

SHA-256 452691e386a58b3573bd9ee4b5f435b3c4b7da367e6393b0eee82ebd92ec2ea1

Secondary source (third-party copy, not published) archive/BH-01/2026-10-12/secondary.html

Retrieved 2026-10-12 04:32:52 UTC

SHA-256 110695ebb438c6eb3622d3b80b00371af7826ab4c9e358cbf5cea06365ff8230

Verification

The instrument's own official text, or an official register, was stored and confirms the title, date and status. checked 2026-10-18 · official-url-fetched

Recheck of 18 Oct 2026. Stored: the policy PDF from iga.gov.bh (13 pages) and iGA's news release of 27 July 2025 (snapshots of 12 Oct 2026, unchanged on 18 Oct 2026). The PDF confirms the title, version 1.0 of 20 May 2025, MCICT approval and the compliance date, the scope, the eleven principles, the four pillars and the roles; the release confirms the launch on 27 July 2025 under the name 'National Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence' and the adoption of the GCC manual. No Arabic version is stored. The previous notes mentioned a Shura Council proposal of April 2024 for an AI law; it rests on press reports only and is listed as a lead instead.

Second check: Independent check by Claude Code (claude-sonnet-5-5), 2026-10-18: 7 field(s) supported.

History

2026-10-18notes: Approved by the Ministerial Committee for Information and Communication Technolo → Approved by the Ministerial Committee for Information and Communication Technolo — rewritten from the PDF and the release; the Shura Council's 2024 AI law proposal (press reports only, a different instrument) moved to leads, and the file-name date dropped2026-10-18-recheck-mena-africa-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
2026-10-18official_identifier: Version 1.0 (20 May 2025) → – — 'Version 1.0 (20 May 2025)' -> null: a version label, not a citable number; the policy has no number (the version is in the notes)2026-10-18-recheck-mena-africa-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)

Citation

Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA); approved by the Ministerial Committee for Information and Communication Technology (MCICT). General Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence (National Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence). 2025-05-20. https://www.iga.gov.bh/Media/Publications/National%20Digital%20Policies/General%20Policy%20for%20the%20Use%20of%20AI%20-%20%20Final%2030%20Jul%202025.pdf. Status: In force; verified 2026-10-18 (level A). Local copy archive/BH-01/2026-10-12/official.pdf retrieved 2026-10-12 04:32:49 UTC, SHA-256 452691e386a58b3573bd9ee4b5f435b3c4b7da367e6393b0eee82ebd92ec2ea1. Every AI Policy Ever, version 1.18 (snapshot 2026-10-18), record BH-01.

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