Prohibited AI Practice
Also called: unacceptable risk
Under the EU AI Act: uses of AI banned outright in the EU, in force since February 2025.
Article 5 bans a defined list, including manipulative techniques that materially distort behaviour and cause harm, exploitation of vulnerabilities, social scoring by or on behalf of public authorities, untargeted scraping of facial images to build recognition databases, and emotion inference in workplaces and schools — with narrow carve-outs. These apply regardless of risk assessment: there is no compliance route.
In practice: Emotion recognition on employees during work is prohibited, not merely high-risk.
Plain-English summary of Article 5. The binding text is Regulation (EU) 2024/1689.