nexalign

Glossary term

AI Act Risk Categories

Also: EU AI Act Risk Classes

Four-tier classification under the EU AI Act: prohibited (Art. 5), high-risk (Annex I/III), limited risk (Art. 50 transparency), minimal risk. Classification is the first duty; it must be documented and defensible.

Prohibited (since February 2025): social scoring, manipulative AI, real-time remote biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces, emotion recognition in workplaces and education, untargeted scraping of facial images.

High-risk Annex III: AI in employment, education, credit scoring, insurance risk, law enforcement, migration, critical infrastructure, justice, democratic processes, biometric categorisation. High-risk Annex I: AI as safety component in regulated products (machinery, medical devices, toys, lifts).

Limited risk: chatbots, deepfakes, emotion recognition, biometric categorisation, AI-generated content (with labelling). Minimal risk: everything else. Classification must be documented; the EU authority can revise the classification at any time.

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