Article 50: Transparency Obligations for Providers and Deployers of Certain AI Systems

Summary of Article 50

  • Responsibilities of Providers: Providers must ensure that AI systems interacting with natural persons disclose their AI nature unless obvious and must mark synthetic content (audio, image, video, or text) as artificially generated or manipulated in a machine-readable format, with certain exceptions for assistive functions or legal purposes.
  • Responsibilities of Deployers: Deployers must inform natural persons about the use of emotion recognition and biometric categorisation systems and disclose deep fakes or manipulated content, including text published for public interest, while adhering to data protection laws and considering exceptions for legal use, editorial control, or artistic works.
  • General Obligations and Institutional Support: All entities must provide clear and accessible transparency information, comply with existing legal obligations, and collaborate with the AI Office and Commission, which are tasked with facilitating codes of practice and common rules for implementing transparency obligations.

Responsibilities of Providers

1. Providers shall ensure that AI systems intended to interact directly with natural persons are designed and developed in such a way that the natural persons concerned are informed that they are interacting with an AI system, unless this is obvious from the point of view of a natural person who is reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect, taking into account the circumstances and the context of use. This obligation shall not apply to AI systems authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences, subject to appropriate safeguards for the rights and freedoms of third parties, unless those systems are available for the public to report a criminal offence. 

Refer to: Recital 132

2. Providers of AI systems, including general-purpose AI systems, generating synthetic audio, image, video or text content, shall ensure that the outputs of the AI system are marked in a machine-readable format and detectable as artificially generated or manipulated. Providers shall ensure their technical solutions are effective, interoperable, robust and reliable as far as this is technically feasible, taking into account the specificities and limitations of various types of content, the costs of implementation and the generally acknowledged state of the art, as may be reflected in relevant technical standards. This obligation shall not apply to the extent the AI systems perform an assistive function for standard editing or do not substantially alter the input data provided by the deployer or the semantics thereof, or where authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences. 

Refer to: Recital 133

Responsibilities of Deployers

3. Deployers of an emotion recognition system or a biometric categorisation system shall inform the natural persons exposed thereto of the operation of the system, and shall process the personal data in accordance with Regulations (EU) 2016/679 and (EU) 2018/1725 and Directive (EU) 2016/680, as applicable. This obligation shall not apply to AI systems used for biometric categorisation and emotion recognition, which are permitted by law to detect, prevent or investigate criminal offences, subject to appropriate safeguards for the rights and freedoms of third parties, and in accordance with Union law. 

Refer to: Recital 132

4. Deployers of an AI system that generates or manipulates image, audio or video content constituting a deep fake, shall disclose that the content has been artificially generated or manipulated. This obligation shall not apply where the use is authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offence. Where the content forms part of an evidently artistic, creative, satirical, fictional or analogous work or programme, the transparency obligations set out in this paragraph are limited to disclosure of the existence of such generated or manipulated content in an appropriate manner that does not hamper the display or enjoyment of the work.

Deployers of an AI system that generates or manipulates text which is published with the purpose of informing the public on matters of public interest shall disclose that the text has been artificially generated or manipulated. This obligation shall not apply where the use is authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences or where the AI-generated content has undergone a process of human review or editorial control and where a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for the publication of the content. 

Refer to: Recital 134

General Obligations and Institutional Support

5. The information referred to in paragraphs 1 to 4 shall be provided to the natural persons concerned in a clear and distinguishable manner at the latest at the time of the first interaction or exposure. The information shall conform to the applicable accessibility requirements.

6. Paragraphs 1 to 4 shall not affect the requirements and obligations set out in Chapter III, and shall be without prejudice to other transparency obligations laid down in Union or national law for deployers of AI systems.

7. The AI Office shall encourage and facilitate the drawing up of codes of practice at Union level to facilitate the effective implementation of the obligations regarding the detection and labelling of artificially generated or manipulated content. The Commission may adopt implementing acts to approve those codes of practice in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 56 (6). If it deems the code is not adequate, the Commission may adopt an implementing act specifying common rules for the implementation of those obligations in accordance with the examination procedure laid down in Article 98(2). 

Refer to: Recital 135

All you need to know about the EU AI Act
in one Cheat Sheet

Get Free PDF Now
About the author
Philip Mohr

Philip Mohr

Philip Mohr, a certified AIGP, is an AI governance consultant with over a decade of expertise in product management, data governance and privacy, leading initiatives at Addtrust (addtrust.com).

#1 Resource on EU AI ACT Compliance

Sign up to get access to free resources and checklists

#1 Resource on EU AI ACT Compliance

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to #1 Resource on EU AI ACT Compliance.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.