prohibited AI practices
In plain wordsUses of AI that the EU bans outright as too harmful — such as manipulating people, social scoring, and most live facial recognition by police in public places.
Uses of AI that the EU AI ActEU AI Act, prop. n.: The European Union's law on artificial intelligence, the first broad AI law anywhere: it bans some uses, sets strict checks for risky ones and puts duties on the makers of the biggest AI models. bans outright as an unacceptable risk, since 2 February 2025. Four concern how people are influenced or judged: subliminal, deliberately manipulative or deceptive techniques, and the exploitation of weaknesses tied to age, disability or social or economic circumstances, where significant harm results or is likely; social scoringsocial scoring, n.: Rating people on how they behave or what they are like, then using the score to treat them worse in unrelated parts of their lives — a practice the EU has banned for AI.; and forecasting that someone will commit a crime from profiling or personality traits alone. Four concern biometrics: building face-recognition databases from images scraped indiscriminately off the internet or CCTV; inferring emotions at work or in education (emotion recognitionemotion recognition system, n.: AI that tries to work out how people feel or what they intend from their faces, voices or bodies. The EU bans it at work and in schools and tightly regulates it elsewhere.), except for medical or safety reasons; biometric categorisationbiometric categorisation, n.: Using AI to sort people into groups — by age, sex, ethnicity and the like — from their faces, voices or other body features. The EU bans using it to guess sensitive traits such as religion or sexuality. to infer race, political opinions, trade-union membership, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation; and real-time remote biometric identificationremote biometric identification, n.: Using AI to recognize people at a distance — usually by matching faces in camera footage against a database — without their taking part. The EU strictly limits live police use of it in public places. in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement, allowed only with prior authorization for narrowly defined searches, imminent threats and serious crimes. The 2026 Digital OmnibusDigital Omnibus, prop. n.: A European Union package, proposed in 2025, that simplified and delayed parts of its digital rules — above all pushing back the strictest requirements of the EU AI Act by more than a year. added bans, from 2 December 2026, on AI that generates non-consensual intimate imagery of identifiable people or child sexual abuse material.
Emotion recognition to monitor call-center staff is a prohibited AI practice in the EU.
Origin
Article 5 of the Commission's April 2021 proposal listed four practices — subliminal manipulation, exploitation of vulnerabilities, social scoring by public authorities and real-time remote biometric identification; negotiations added predictive policing, facial-image scraping, workplace emotion recognition and sensitive biometric categorisation. The Commission issued interpretive guidelines in February 2025.
Usage note
Breaches carry the Act's highest fines: up to €35 million or 7% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. Civil-society groups consider several exceptions, especially for law enforcement, too wide.
Related
- EU AI ActEU AI Act, prop. n.: The European Union's law on artificial intelligence, the first broad AI law anywhere: it bans some uses, sets strict checks for risky ones and puts duties on the makers of the biggest AI models.
- social scoringsocial scoring, n.: Rating people on how they behave or what they are like, then using the score to treat them worse in unrelated parts of their lives — a practice the EU has banned for AI.
- remote biometric identificationremote biometric identification, n.: Using AI to recognize people at a distance — usually by matching faces in camera footage against a database — without their taking part. The EU strictly limits live police use of it in public places.
- emotion recognition systememotion recognition system, n.: AI that tries to work out how people feel or what they intend from their faces, voices or bodies. The EU bans it at work and in schools and tightly regulates it elsewhere.
- biometric categorisationbiometric categorisation, n.: Using AI to sort people into groups — by age, sex, ethnicity and the like — from their faces, voices or other body features. The EU bans using it to guess sensitive traits such as religion or sexuality.
- risk-based approachrisk-based approach, n.: A way of regulating AI in which the strictness of the rules depends on how much harm a use could cause: bans for the worst uses, heavy checks for risky ones, little or nothing for the rest.
- AI red linesAI red lines, n.: Limits on AI that would be forbidden worldwide no matter what — for example AI that copies itself without permission or controls nuclear weapons — which campaigners want governments to agree on.
Defined in law or standards
EU AI Act (Reg. (EU) 2024/1689), Art. 5; fines Art. 99(3); Art. 5(1)(ba)–(bb) inserted by Reg. (EU) 2026/1744
Mentioned in
AI regulationAI regulation, n.: Laws and binding government rules about artificial intelligence: what AI may be used for, what checks its makers must run, and what penalties apply when they break the rules., EU AI ActEU AI Act, prop. n.: The European Union's law on artificial intelligence, the first broad AI law anywhere: it bans some uses, sets strict checks for risky ones and puts duties on the makers of the biggest AI models., AI red linesAI red lines, n.: Limits on AI that would be forbidden worldwide no matter what — for example AI that copies itself without permission or controls nuclear weapons — which campaigners want governments to agree on., dark patterndark pattern, n.: A trick in the design of an app, website or chatbot that nudges you into doing something you didn't mean to, like signing up for a subscription that is hard to cancel., Digital OmnibusDigital Omnibus, prop. n.: A European Union package, proposed in 2025, that simplified and delayed parts of its digital rules — above all pushing back the strictest requirements of the EU AI Act by more than a year., nudification appnudification app, n.: An app or AI tool that takes an ordinary photo of a real person and fakes a nude or sexual image of them, almost always without their consent., predictive AIpredictive AI, n.: AI used to forecast outcomes about people or events, such as who will repay a loan, which patient may get sicker or which machine will fail, in order to guide decisions., predictive policingpredictive policing, n.: Using computer programs to forecast where crimes are likely to happen, or who is likely to be involved, so that police can decide where to patrol or whom to watch., remote biometric identificationremote biometric identification, n.: Using AI to recognize people at a distance — usually by matching faces in camera footage against a database — without their taking part. The EU strictly limits live police use of it in public places., risk-based approachrisk-based approach, n.: A way of regulating AI in which the strictness of the rules depends on how much harm a use could cause: bans for the worst uses, heavy checks for risky ones, little or nothing for the rest., social scoringsocial scoring, n.: Rating people on how they behave or what they are like, then using the score to treat them worse in unrelated parts of their lives — a practice the EU has banned for AI., biometric categorisationbiometric categorisation, n.: Using AI to sort people into groups — by age, sex, ethnicity and the like — from their faces, voices or other body features. The EU bans using it to guess sensitive traits such as religion or sexuality., Clearview AIClearview AI, prop. n.: A US company that collected billions of photos from the internet without permission to build a face-search tool for police, the best-known example of controversial facial recognition., emotion recognition systememotion recognition system, n.: AI that tries to work out how people feel or what they intend from their faces, voices or bodies. The EU bans it at work and in schools and tightly regulates it elsewhere.