Bahrain's Information and eGovernment Authority launched the National Policy for the Use of Artificial Intelligence on 27 July 2025 and adopted the GCC Guiding Manual on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence Use. The policy is aimed at officials and staff involved in digital public services, decision-makers, legislators, researchers and the public. It places AI adoption within existing national rules rather than presenting the technology as a separate legal domain.
The framework is organised around four elements: compliance with legislation and policy, adoption and use of AI, education and awareness, and local and international cooperation. The authority explicitly links implementation to Bahrain's Personal Data Protection Law, rules protecting state documents and information, and the country's open-data policy. The accompanying GCC manual adds principles covering human autonomy, safety, fairness, non-discrimination, privacy and data protection, with shared regional values included in the ethical foundation.
That combination is important because broad principles only become useful when institutions can translate them into operating decisions. A public body needs to know who owns an AI system, which data it may process, how performance will be tested and when a person must review or override an output. Procurement, documentation, incident reporting and staff training are therefore central even when they are not visible to users. The policy sets a national reference point, while implementation inside individual agencies will determine whether controls are consistent.
The next evidence should come from practice: inventories of government AI systems, risk classifications, impact assessments, evaluation standards, procurement clauses and transparent reporting on incidents or material changes. The cited announcement does not create a standalone AI regulator or specify sanctions, and it should not be read as proof that every deployment already meets the framework. Bahrain has established a common policy language tied to existing law and a regional ethics manual. Its strength will be measured by the tools, oversight and institutional routines that turn those commitments into verifiable behaviour.
