Article 50: Transparency Obligations
Article 50 requires disclosure that a person is interacting with an AI system, machine-readable marking of AI-generated synthetic content, information to people exposed to emotion recognition or biometric categorisation systems, and labelling of deepfakes and AI-generated text on matters of public interest. These duties have applied since 2 August 2026 and were not postponed as a whole by the Digital Omnibus; only Article 50(2) got a limited transition arrangement for pre-existing systems.
- 02 Aug 2026 Article 50(1), 50(3), 50(4) apply, and Article 50(2) applies to any system newly placed on the market from this date
- 02 Dec 2026 Deadline for systems that were already placed on the market before 2 August 2026 to comply with the Article 50(2) synthetic-content marking duty (transitional period added by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, amending Article 113)
- Disclose that a person is interacting with an AI system in direct human-facing interactive systems, unless this is obvious from the context (Art. 50(1)).
- Implement machine-readable marking (watermarking) of AI-generated synthetic content — image, audio, video, text (Art. 50(2)).
- For systems already placed on the market before 2 August 2026, apply the marking under Art. 50(2) by 2 December 2026 at the latest; systems placed on the market from 2 August 2026 onward must comply immediately.
- Inform affected natural persons when operating an emotion recognition or biometric categorisation system (Art. 50(3)).
- Disclose that published image, audio, or video content has been artificially generated or manipulated ('deepfakes') (Art. 50(4)).
- Disclose the artificial generation of AI-generated text on matters of public interest, unless it is under the editorial responsibility of a natural or legal person (Art. 50(4)).
- UI disclosure design
- Watermarking/metadata implementation record
- Deepfake labelling at point of publication
Article 50 as a whole is frequently reported as "delayed to December 2026" because of the Article 50(2) transition; in fact only the synthetic-content marking duty for pre-existing systems moved, new systems and all other Article 50 paragraphs have been binding since 2 August 2026 without a grace period.
Unsettled: The legal status of the Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content, confirmed by the Commission on 20 July 2026, and whether it carries a presumption-of-conformity effect similar to the GPAI Code of Practice, was not conclusively established in the underlying research.
What regulators published on Art. 50
- Loading from the public feed…
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on EUR-Lex
- Look for Article 50
- Deadline changes and the acts behind them
Get told when Art. 50 moves.
Deadlines under this regulation have already shifted once in 2026. A signed webhook, a REST API and an MCP server carry the same record this page is built from, so your systems learn about the next change without anyone re-reading the text. Free during the beta.
Get free accessInformational content only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for qualified counsel. Dates reflect Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 as of 04 Aug 2026.