The prohibitions in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Act are without prejudice to and complement other Union law. The same practice that falls within the prohibition of Article 5(1)(a) or (b) AI Act may also constitute an infringement of other Union law legislation and be subject to enforcement under both the AI Act and those other acts . This is important because different provisions in those acts aim to protect different interests and have different objectives, scopes, and addressees. This ensures a comprehensive regulatory approach that protects persons and groups of persons from harmful AI exploitation and manipulation and ensures safe and trustworthy AI-enabled services and products in the Union.
The prohibitions in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Act align closely with the objectives of EU consumer protection law , in particular the UCPD which protects consumers from business practices that are misleading or aggressive, including when they are AI-driven. Both the AI Act and the UCPD aim to proactively prevent consumer harm from AI-driven business practices that are manipulative, misleading, or aggressive. At the same time, the prohibitions in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Act are broader in scope, since they protect not only consumers, but any natural person and their behaviour in a variety of contexts beyond commercial settings. The harms covered by the AI Act are also broader beyond economic harms, although the AI Act sets a threshold of significant harm that is not present in consumer protection law.
The prohibitions are also consistent with Union data protection law , including the principles on lawful, fair, and transparent data processing, that aims to protect data subjects’ personal data and ultimately preserve their fundamental rights and autonomy. The availability of more (personal) data and the increased possibilities to process this data with AI systems increase the risk of harmful manipulative, deceptive or exploitative practices, such as those falling within the scope of Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Act. In this context, compliance with the data protection rules for transparency, data minimisation, fairness and lawfulness, for example for personalised profiling and advertising, based on off-service users’ data95may contribute to avoid harmful personalised manipulation and exploitation.
The interplay with Union non-discrimination law is also relevant for the prohibition in Article 5(1)(b) AI Act,96 given that vulnerabilities due to age and disability are also protected grounds on which people have the right not to be discriminated, while socio-economic situation intersects with a variety of other grounds , such as race and ethnic origin. The prohibitions in the AI Act do not affect prohibitions basedon other grounds or discriminatory practices that do not entail significant harms and that are already prohibited by Union non-discrimination law.
The prohibitions in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Act are also complementary toRegulation (EU) 2022/2065 (the Digital Services Act (‘DSA’) which regulates online intermediary services, such as online platforms and search engines , and ensures transparency and accountability in the provision of those services. Notably, Article 25(1) DSA prohibits dark patterns within the user interface to ensure that providers of online platforms do not mislead or coerce users into actions that may not align with their genuine intentions. Such dark patterns should be understood to constitute an example of manipulative or deceptive techniques within the meaning of Article 5(1)(a) AI Act, when they are likely to cause significant harms.
The DSA also sets out obligations for providers of online platforms to ensure transparency in advertising (Articles 26 and 38 for very large online platforms or very large search engines), on the use of recommender systems (Article 27) and on the protection of minors (Article 28DSA). Moreover, if an online platform or search engine is classified as a very large online platform or very large search engine, the provider of that designated service has additional obligations to assess and mitigate systemic risks stemming from the design or functioning of its service and its related systems, including algorithmic systems (Articles 34 and 35 DSA) . When conducting risks assessments, providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines should consider how their recommender systems, advertising, content moderation and any other relevant algorithmic systems influence such systemic risks. Such risk assessments should also analyse how systemic risks are influenced by, among other things, the intentional manipulation and automated exploitation of the service (c.f. Article 34(2) DSA an d recital 83 DSA) . Nevertheless, the scope of Article 5(1)(a) or (b) AI Act covers a broad variety of other scenarios (e.g. chatbots, AI-enabled services and products) that may be offered or used by other actors than providers of intermediary services.
The prohibition of manipulative AI techniques pursuant to Article 5(1)(a) AI Act also supports the objectives of Directive2010/13/EU (the AVMSD)97 by preventing harmful AI-driven ad vertisement s98 and other AI-enabled manipulative and exploitative practices that may be significantly harmful in the media sector.
The AI Act also complements Regulation (EU) 2024/900 ( the Political advertising regulation)99 which provides harmonised rules, including transparency and related due diligence obligations, for the provision of political advertising and related services; and on the use of targeting and ad-delivery techniques in the context of online political advertising. This Regulation prohibits profiling based on special categories of personal data in the context of online political advertising and targeting of persons at least one year under the voting age established by national rules. Furthermore, targeting and ad-delivery techniques in the context of online political advertising can only be done if based on personal data collected from the data subjects and with their explicit consent. Additional transparency requirements also apply , i.e. disclosure of political advertisement, describing the use of such techniques and main parameters and additional information on the logic involved, including about the use of AI systems. Targeted political advertising based on processing of personal data in compliance with that Regulation100 will help to ensure that profiling of voters and targeting and ad-delivery of political ads operate within the boundaries of lawful persuasion.
The AI Act prohibition of harmful exploitative and deceptive AI practices is also complementary to other applicable Union legislation that sets general transparency rules on advertising and consumer protection and due conduct of operators (e.g., Directive 2014/65/EU MIFID, Directive (EU) 2016/97 on Insurance Distribution , 101 Directive (EU) 2023/2225 on Consumer Credit Agreements, Directive (EU) 2002/65 Distance Marketing , Directive 2006/114/EC on misleading and comparative advertising and Directive (EU) 2011/83 on consumer rights sets general consumer protection standards). In this regard, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has already issued a supervisory statement on some unfair exploitative practices in relation to differential pricing that could also fall under the scope of the AI Act when enabled by AI systems.102
The prohibitions in Article 5(1) (a) and (b) AI Act are also without prejudice to and complement EU product safety legislation (e.g., for medical devices, toys, machinery), which plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety of products that integrate AI systems. This entails compliance with ex ante safety requirements for regulated products and their proactive monitoring to ensure that they do not pose safety risks leading to physical and mental harms. The manufacturer of those products embedding AI systems should therefore take into account these prohibitions in their risk assessments and safety mitigating measures to the extent this fits with the logic and the scope of the relevant Union harmonised safety legislation. Union safety legislation is also complementary to the AI Act prohibitions and can also intervene and address safety risks that do not pose significant harm. In particular, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 (the General Product Safety Regulation)103 acts as a safety net and requires all consumer products not covered by specific requirements in other sectoral Union product safety legislation (including products embedding AI systems not classified as high-risk pursuant to Article 6 and subjected to the requirements in the AI A ct) to be safe under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use , in particular addressing risks to physical and mental health risks for consumers.
Finally, the interplay with criminal law is critical. The prohibitions in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Act aim to prevent harmful behaviour that may constitute or lead to criminal offences, such as fraud, forgery, scams, coercion, or the generation and dissemination of illegal content, such as terrorist content, child sexual abuse material, hate speech and sexually explicit deepfakes . 104 Importantly, as internal market legislation, the prohibitions in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Actcover not only the use, but also the placing on the market of the AI system , thus preventing harm early on by limiting access to such prohibited systems that can facilitate and obscure criminal activities. Furthermore, the prohibitions in Article 5(1)(a) and (b) AI Act could also cover other harmful practices that are not qualified as criminal offences under Union or national law.