Article 5: Prohibited AI Practices
Article 5 bans specific AI uses outright, regardless of risk classification elsewhere in the Act: manipulative or deceptive techniques that cause harm, exploitation of vulnerable groups, social scoring, certain biometric categorisation and untargeted facial-image scraping, workplace and education emotion recognition, and real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces (with narrow law-enforcement exceptions). These bans have applied since 2 February 2025 and were not touched by the Digital Omnibus.
- 02 Feb 2025 Original Article 5 prohibitions apply; unaffected by the Digital Omnibus
- 02 Dec 2026 New prohibition, added by the Digital Omnibus, on systems generating non-consensual intimate imagery or CSAM-adjacent content
- Do not place on the market, put into service, or use a system that employs a banned technique listed in Article 5.
- Screen new AI use cases against the Article 5 list before development, not only before deployment.
- Where a narrow law-enforcement exception for real-time remote biometric identification is invoked, document the specific legal basis and authorisation used.
- Treat the new prohibition on systems generating non-consensual intimate imagery or CSAM-adjacent content as in force from 2 December 2026.
- Keep this assessment current — the Digital Omnibus added a new banned category, and further additions are possible.
Because the Digital Omnibus pushed back several high-risk deadlines, people assume Article 5 was delayed too — it was not; the bans have been enforceable since February 2025 without interruption.
Unsettled: Whether the new ban on non-consensual intimate-image/CSAM-adjacent generation systems was inserted as a new sub-provision of Article 5 or as a separate norm was not confirmed against the EUR-Lex primary text in the underlying research; only secondary sources (law-firm analyses, press coverage) describe it.
What regulators published on Art. 5
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- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on EUR-Lex
- Look for Article 5
- Deadline changes and the acts behind them
Get told when Art. 5 moves.
Deadlines under this regulation have already shifted once in 2026. A signed webhook, a REST API and an MCP server carry the same record this page is built from, so your systems learn about the next change without anyone re-reading the text. Free during the beta.
Get free accessInformational content only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for qualified counsel. Dates reflect Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 as of 04 Aug 2026.