Preparing Chile for the 2026 Data and AI Laws
Chile is at a pivotal moment for digital and data policy. As the country prepares for its Personal Data Protection Law (No. 21.719) to come into full effect in December 2026, alongside an AI Bill progressing through Congress, attention is turning from establishing legal and ethical principles to putting them into practice.
Working with government and civil society partners, we are helping to identify the data infrastructure, standards and institutional coordination needed so that these emerging laws can translate into a regulatory framework for responsible and effective AI use.
Workshops convened in Santiago in February 2026 brought together stakeholders from the Ministry of Science, Ministry of Health, Central Bank, and civil society. They highlighted a significant implementation challenge, noting that uncertainty around issues such as consent and liability can make it difficult to put valuable data to use, despite Chile having developed a promising framework for AI and data governance.
This is particularly important in the health sector. High-value health data could support AI applications in areas ranging from biosurveillance to patient care, but legal ambiguity can prevent that data from being accessed and used responsibly.
We recommended creating a Health and Science Regulatory Sandbox, co‑governed by the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Health. This would provide a controlled environment in which public and private actors could test AI applications using real patient data under temporary regulatory arrangements, helping to generate evidence to inform longer-term rules and approaches.
The sandbox could also help build confidence in privacy‑preserving infrastructures like Trusted Research Environments (TREs), where algorithms can analyse sensitive data without moving it. This has the potential to support Chile’s One Health vision by enabling better use of human, animal and environmental data while maintaining appropriate safeguards.
By focusing on data infrastructure and standards, this work is helping Chile bridge the gap between high‑level principles and practical implementation. These foundations will be critical to ensuring that emerging AI technologies can be used responsibly and effectively as the country’s new regulatory framework takes effect.
We are grateful to the UK Government Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office for their support of this work.