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FREE TOOL — ART. 5 EU AI ACT

Is my AI system prohibited?

Answer a few questions and get an instant verdict for each of the 9 practices prohibited by Article 5 of the EU AI Regulation.

Educational tool. Does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified professional for any compliance decision.

What is Article 5 of the EU AI Act?

Article 5 of EU Regulation 2024/1689 on artificial intelligence establishes a list of AI practices that are completely prohibited in the European Union, regardless of the risk level of the system. These prohibitions apply to placing on the market, putting into service, and using the systems concerned. Violations are subject to fines of up to €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover.

Source: EU Regulation 2024/1689, Art. 5 — Prohibited AI practices; European Commission Guidelines C(2025) 884 final.

9 prohibited practices — Art. 5 AI Act

Art. 5§1(a)

Subliminal or deceptive manipulation

AI systems using subliminal techniques or deliberately deceptive techniques capable of distorting a person's behaviour in a way they cannot perceive or control, causing or likely to cause significant harm.

Art. 5§1(b)

Exploitation of vulnerabilities

AI systems exploiting the vulnerabilities of specific groups (age, disability, precarious socioeconomic situation) to distort behaviour in a way likely to cause harm.

Art. 5§1(c)

Social scoring

AI systems for evaluating or classifying natural persons by public authorities (or on their behalf) based on social behaviour or personal characteristics, resulting in detrimental out-of-context treatment.

Art. 5§1(d)

Individual predictive policing

AI systems used by law enforcement authorities to assess the risk of a natural person committing a criminal offence, based solely on profiling or assessment of personality traits, without objective facts.

Art. 5§1(e)

Untargeted facial image scraping

AI systems creating or expanding facial recognition databases through untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage.

Art. 5§1(f)

Emotion inference in workplace and education

AI systems inferring the emotions of natural persons in the workplace or educational establishments, except for medical or physical safety purposes.

Art. 5§1(g)

Biometric categorisation / sensitive attributes

Biometric categorisation systems inferring race, political opinions, trade union membership, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation from biometric data.

Art. 5§1(h)

Real-time biometric identification (law enforcement)

Real-time remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces used for law enforcement purposes, except under the strictly defined exceptions of Art. 5§3.

Frequently asked questions

What AI practices are prohibited by the EU AI Act?+

Article 5 of the AI Act prohibits 8 categories of practices: (1) subliminal or deceptive manipulation causing harm, (2) exploitation of vulnerabilities (age, disability, socioeconomic situation), (3) social scoring by public authorities leading to detrimental out-of-context treatment, (4) individual predictive policing based on profiling, (5) untargeted scraping of facial images, (6) inference of emotions in the workplace or education, (7) biometric categorisation inferring sensitive data, and (8) real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces for law enforcement purposes.

What are the penalties for using a prohibited AI system?+

Infringements of Article 5 constitute the most serious violations of the AI Act. They are subject to administrative fines of up to €35,000,000 or, if the offender is a company, up to 7% of its total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year, whichever is higher (Art. 99§3 AI Act).

Do the prohibitions apply to companies outside the EU?+

Yes. The AI Act applies whenever an AI system is placed on the market or put into service in the European Union, or its outputs are used in the EU — even if the provider is established outside the Union (Art. 2 AI Act).

Are there any exceptions to the prohibited practices?+

Yes, but they are very strict. For real-time biometric identification (Art. 5§1(h)), exceptions apply for narrowly defined law enforcement purposes (Art. 5§3: targeted search for a missing person, prevention of a specific imminent terrorist threat, localisation of a suspect for a serious criminal offence). For emotion inference, exceptions exist for medical or therapeutic purposes (Art. 5§2(a)) and physical safety of persons (Art. 5§2(b)). These exceptions must be documented and do not exempt from thorough legal analysis.

Prohibited AI Practices Detector — Article 5 AI Act | DILAIG