Article 5: prohibited practices
The prohibition of AI practices carrying unacceptable risk, such as manipulation, social scoring and certain biometric applications.
The official source remains authoritative. This general interpretation is not legal advice.
- Status
- Applicable
- Application date
- 2 February 2025
- Version
- 1.0.0
- Last reviewed
- 8 August 2026
Who this is relevant to
When this applies
Deployer
An organisation using an AI system under its authority, excluding personal non-professional use.
Provider of an AI system
A party that develops or has an AI system developed and places it on the market under its own name.
- 1Placing on the market, putting into service or using AI falls under one of the practices in Article 5(1), including harmful manipulation or exploitation of vulnerabilities, social scoring, predicting criminal offences based on profiling, untargeted scraping of facial images, emotion recognition in the workplace or education, biometric categorisation by sensitive characteristics and real-time remote biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement.
What the official source establishes
The prohibited practices of Article 5 apply since 2 February 2025 and are the only AI Act category enforceable for that entire period. Violations carry the highest fine ceiling in the regulation: up to 35 million euro or 7 percent of worldwide annual turnover.
The Digital Omnibus adds a prohibition on AI for child sexual abuse material and non-consensual intimate synthetic content; the accompanying technical safeguards are required by 2 December 2026.
Our interpretation
The line often sits in the definitional details: the same technique can be prohibited in the workplace and permitted in another context. Screen per concrete use and context, not per technology, and do so before procurement or go-live.
What you can do now
Make the Article 5 screening the first step of every classification and record the outcome per system in the register, including the reasoning why a practice does not fall under the prohibition.
- 01
Screen every use case against Article 5 first
Before procurement, build or deployment, check whether the use case falls under a prohibited practice and stop or redesign early rather than after the fact.
What to retain
Article 5 screening record
A record per system that the Article 5 screening was performed, with outcome and reasoning. The conclusion "no prohibited practice" is evidence too.
Control and reassessment
Article 5 gate at intake and change
Repeat the screening for every new system, procurement and material change of purpose or context; an earlier clearance does not cover a new use.
Public tools
Full text of Article 5
The full legal text of the prohibited practices with all categories and exceptions, in the public AI Act Explorer.
Conditions and exceptions
- The exceptions are narrow: among others, emotion recognition for medical or safety reasons, and the exhaustively defined law-enforcement situations with authorisation for real-time remote biometric identification in Article 5(2) to (7). The exception must be established and documented in advance.
Official sources and locators
EU Artificial Intelligence Act 2024/1689
European Parliament and Council | original-oj-2024-07-12
Source locator: Article 5, Article 99(3) and Article 113(a)
Digital Omnibus on AI 2026/1744
European Parliament and Council | official-journal-2026-07-24
Source locator: Amendment to Article 5 and transition to 2 December 2026
EU Artificial Intelligence Act 2024/1689
European Parliament and Council | original-oj-2024-07-12
Source locator: Article 5(1)(a)-(h)
EU Artificial Intelligence Act 2024/1689
European Parliament and Council | original-oj-2024-07-12
Source locator: Article 5 read with Article 6 classification order
Version history
v1.0.0
2 February 2025
Article 5: prohibited practices
The prohibition of AI practices carrying unacceptable risk, such as manipulation, social scoring and certain biometric applications.
Execution
Demonstrably rule out prohibited practices
This prohibition is already enforceable and carries the highest fine ceiling. Embed AI includes the Article 5 screening as the first step of classification and delivers the screening record per system.
See the Embed AI approachFor AI agents and integrations
This page and the machine output derive from the same versioned object. Use the API for deterministic filters by role, topic and time.