Prohibited AI Practices: Article 5 Explained
Understanding which AI practices are completely banned under the EU AI Act and how to ensure your systems comply.
Prohibited AI Practices: Article 5 Explained
Article 5 of the EU AI Act defines AI practices that are completely banned in the European Union due to their unacceptable risk to fundamental rights.
Banned Practices
1. Social Scoring
AI systems used by public authorities to evaluate or classify people based on their social behavior or personal characteristics, leading to detrimental treatment.
2. Subliminal Manipulation
AI that deploys subliminal techniques beyond a person's consciousness to materially distort their behavior in a way that causes harm.
3. Exploitation of Vulnerabilities
AI systems that exploit vulnerabilities of specific groups (age, disability, social or economic situation) to distort behavior and cause harm.
4. Real-time Remote Biometric Identification
Use of real-time remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement, except in narrowly defined situations.
5. Biometric Categorization
AI systems that categorize individuals based on biometric data to infer race, political opinions, trade union membership, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.
6. Untargeted Facial Recognition Scraping
Creating facial recognition databases through untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage.
7. Emotion Recognition in Workplace and Education
AI systems that infer emotions in workplace and educational settings, except for medical or safety reasons.
8. Predictive Policing (Individual)
AI systems that make risk assessments of individuals to predict criminal offending based solely on profiling or personality traits.
Penalties
Violations of prohibited practices carry the highest fines: up to €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover.
Check Your Systems
Use EUAIActReady to verify that none of your AI systems fall under prohibited practices.