Prohibited AI practices

Article 5 bans uses of AI considered an unacceptable risk. They have been prohibited since 2 February 2025:

• Subliminal or manipulative techniques that distort behaviour and cause harm.
• Exploiting vulnerabilities due to age, disability or social or economic situation.
• Social scoring of individuals leading to detrimental treatment.
• Predicting that someone will commit a crime based solely on profiling.
• Building facial recognition databases by untargeted scraping of the internet or CCTV.
• Emotion recognition in the workplace or in education (except for medical or safety reasons).
• Biometric categorisation to infer race, political opinions, religion or sexual orientation.
• Real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces for law enforcement, except in narrowly defined cases.

The Digital Omnibus added a ban on generating non-consensual intimate imagery ("nudifiers") and child sexual abuse material, applicable from 2 December 2026. Fines reach €35 million or 7% of worldwide turnover.