Chile Keeps Boric’s AI Bill Alive While Kast Reserves a Rewrite
A Senate committee has approved the Chamber's risk-tiered AI bill; the Kast government has until 4 December to file its promised substitute. The Senate has also voted to delay Chile's data-protection law to 15 October 2027, and Mexico's Supreme Court has frozen 138 biometric-CURP appeals.

Chile’s Senate has done two things in a week that set the calendar for public-sector AI. On 26 October 2026 its Future Challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation Committee approved in general the AI systems bill inherited from the Boric government, a text built on European-style risk tiers that the Kast government wants to replace. Two days later the full Senate voted to push back the entry into force of the new data-protection law, Ley 21.719, to 15 October 2027. The first keeps alive a bill the Executive dislikes; the second buys it time on the law it already has.
Which bill the committee approved
The Senate’s committee record for 26 October lists the committee’s session on Boletín 15869-19 with the outcome “Se aprobó el proyecto en general. Pasa a la Sala.” The Senate’s bill tracker shows that Boletín 15869-19, a members’ motion of 24 April 2023, and Boletín 16821-19, the Executive’s message of 7 May 2024, were merged, with 15869-19 as the lead file. The Chamber of Deputies approved the combined text on 13 October 2025.
According to Mala Espina Check, the vote was 4–0, by senators Rojo Edwards, Daniella Cicardini, Ricardo Celis and Andrés Longton, with science minister Ximena Lincolao present, and the committee proposed 4 December as the deadline for amendments. The text approved is the Chamber’s. As set out in the Chamber committee’s second report of October 2025, it has four risk categories; prohibited uses including emotion inference in workplaces and schools and real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces; risk-management, documentation and human-oversight duties for high-risk systems; labelling of AI-generated content; and fines of up to 20,000 UTM. Mala Espina Check adds that public bodies are bound too. The tracker records no committee report yet, and no floor date.
What the Executive wants instead
Approval in general is a vote on the idea of legislating, not on the text. At a hearing on 26 May the Senate reported that Ms Lincolao presented a six-pillar framework drawing on Japan and Singapore, and committee chair Rojo Edwards said the likely outcome was an indicación sustitutiva, swapping “la revisión ex ante” for “revisión ex post”. In August Ms Lincolao told Ex-Ante, in an interview republished by T13, that “Europa nos ha dado lecciones de lo que no debemos hacer” (Europe has taught lessons in what not to do, in AI & GPP’s translation), describing a substitute of more than 20 articles, with sandboxes, international technical guidelines and penalties tied to concrete harm, due in early September. AI & GPP set out that plan in Chile Moves to Ditch Europe’s AI Rulebook. The substitute has still not been filed; the tracker’s last entry is an urgency renewal on 1 September. Until it is, the operative text for any floor vote is the Chamber’s, duties on the state included.
The data law moved faster
The parallel bill, Boletín 18623-07, took a day from committee reports to floor. The Senate’s tracker records approval “en general y particular a la vez” on 28 October under “discusión inmediata” urgency, and dispatch to the Chamber of Deputies on 29 October. Emol reported the vote as 33 to 6. The law was due to apply from 1 December 2026; at committee stage, covered in Peru Names an AI Officer in Every Ministry, the Executive had asked for 1 December 2027, and senators cut that to 15 October 2027. The same article says the bill enlarges the board of the Agencia de Protección de Datos Personales from three to five members, on six-year non-renewable terms, with nominees due nine months in advance and the two-thirds Senate confirmation threshold kept. The delay matters for AI because the Chamber’s AI text leans on an agency that does not yet exist.
| Date | Step | Bill |
|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct 2025 | Chamber of Deputies approves AI systems bill | 15869-19 / 16821-19 |
| 26 Oct 2026 | Senate committee approves AI bill in general | 15869-19 / 16821-19 |
| 28 Oct 2026 | Senate passes data-law delay, 33–6 | 18623-07 |
| 4 Dec 2026 | Deadline for amendments, including the Executive’s substitute | 15869-19 / 16821-19 |
| 15 Oct 2027 | Proposed entry into force of Ley 21.719 | 18623-07 |
What Mexico’s court froze, and what it left running
Mexico offers the contrast: a platform already running, its legal basis parked in court. Acuerdo General 13/2026-AAG, adopted unanimously by the Supreme Court’s Pleno on 14 October and published in the Diario Oficial on 22 October, orders the collegiate circuit courts to keep processing, but not decide, amparos turning on articles 91, 91 Bis to 91 Sexies and 114 Bis of the Ley General de Población, the July 2025 reform that made the biometric CURP compulsory. It cites 138 such appeals pending at 30 September, plus seven before the Court itself. It is silent on the platform; El CEO reported that the order does not suspend the biometric CURP’s roll-out and implies no view on its constitutionality.
For officials in Santiago, the dates to hold are 4 December for amendments and whatever floor date the Senate sets; procurement that assumes the Chamber’s duties will never bind the state is betting on a text that does not yet exist. In Mexico City, the Court has given no date at all.
Sources
- Tramitación de proyectos, Boletín 16821-19 — Senado de Chile, accessed 2 November 2026 (in Spanish)
- Últimas sesiones de comisiones — Senado de Chile, session of 26 October 2026 (in Spanish)
- Ley de IA avanza en el Senado: qué usos prohibiría y cómo afectaría a colegios, empresas y al Estado — Mala Espina Check, 27 October 2026 (in Spanish)
- Segundo informe de la Comisión de Futuro, Ciencias, Tecnología, Conocimiento e Innovación, Boletines refundidos 16821-19 y 15869-19 — Cámara de Diputados, via Senado de Chile, 7 October 2025 (PDF; in Spanish)
- Senadores conocen propuesta del Ejecutivo para ley marco de IA — Senado de Chile, 26 May 2026 (in Spanish)
- El radical cambio que prepara Kast al proyecto de ley sobre Inteligencia Artificial de Boric — Ex-Ante via T13, 30 August 2026 (in Spanish; translation by AI & GPP)
- Tramitación de proyectos, Boletín 18623-07 — Senado de Chile, accessed 2 November 2026 (in Spanish)
- Senado aprueba aplazar la Ley de Datos Personales: Regiría desde el 15 de octubre de 2027 — Emol, 29 October 2026 (in Spanish)
- Acuerdo General número 13/2026-AAG del Pleno de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación — SCJN, 14 October 2026, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación 22 October 2026 (PDF; in Spanish)
- SCJN aplaza resolución de 138 amparos contra la CURP biométrica; revisará su constitucionalidad — El CEO, 23 October 2026 (in Spanish)
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