Biometric Categorisation
Under the EU AI Act: assigning people to categories based on their biometric data — restricted, and prohibited for sensitive attributes.
Article 3(40) defines it, excluding uses ancillary to another service and strictly necessary for technical reasons. Categorising people by sensitive or protected characteristics is a prohibited practice; other biometric categorisation generally falls in the high-risk tier.
In practice: Inferring ethnicity or political affiliation from a face is prohibited.
Plain-English summary of Article 3(40). The binding text is Regulation (EU) 2024/1689.