Are you exposed under Article 50? A checklist.
Nine questions that tell you whether your published content falls under Article 50, what you have to label, and what evidence you would need if somebody asked.
No signup. The whole thing is on this page. If you want the reasoning behind it rather than the questions, read the Article 50 page or the underlying text of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 .
The nine questions
Work through them in order. Questions 1 to 3 decide whether you are in scope at all. Questions 4 to 7 decide what you have to say. Questions 8 and 9 decide whether you could stand behind it.
- 1
Does any content you published reach people in the EU?
Scope follows where the output lands, not where your company is registered. A Swiss or UK company publishing into the EU market should treat itself as in scope.
If yes: Continue. The rest of this list applies to you.
If no: Article 50 is unlikely to reach you today. Revisit if you open an EU market.
- 2
Was any of it generated or altered by an AI system?
This covers synthetic audio, image, video and text, not only the obvious generated illustration. Research and drafting assistance count as involvement.
If yes: Continue. You have content in scope.
If no: Nothing to disclose. Worth recording that positively rather than staying silent.
- 3
Do you publish the output, rather than only supply the AI system?
Providers put the AI system on the market and carry the machine-readable marking duty. Deployers publish the result and carry the disclosure duty.
If yes: You are a deployer. The disclosure duty is yours, not your vendor's.
If no: You may be a provider, in which case the marking obligation applies instead.
- 4
Does any of it depict real people, places or events in a way that could be mistaken for real?
Deep fakes carry a disclosure duty on the deployer specifically.
If yes: Disclose. This category is named expressly in the article.
If no: Move on, but re-check if you start producing synthetic likenesses.
- 5
Does any of it inform the public on a matter of public interest?
AI-generated or manipulated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest is named separately. Market commentary, regulatory explainers and public-health or consumer-safety pieces can fall here even though they are not journalism.
If yes: Disclose. This is the category most corporate publishers underestimate.
If no: Likely outside this limb, though the general marking and disclosure duties can still apply.
- 6
For each piece, do you know which of the four declarations is accurate?
AI generated, AI modified, AI assisted, human authored. Accuracy is the obligation. An understated label is the one somebody has a reason to challenge.
If yes: Good. Write it down per asset rather than as a site-wide policy.
If no: Work down from the strongest claim rather than picking the most comfortable one.
- 7
Is the disclosure visible where somebody actually meets the content?
Disclosure has to reach the person at the point of exposure, not sit three clicks away in a policy document.
If yes: Good.
If no: Move it. A policy page is not a disclosure to the person reading the article.
- 8
If somebody asked you to back up a declaration from six months ago, what would you hand them?
This is the question that separates a label from a record. File modification dates, email threads, project history and cloud version history are all held by the party making the claim and can be changed by that party.
If yes: If the answer is a dated record bound to the exact file, you are in good shape.
If no: If the answer is a folder of screenshots and a memory, that is the gap.
- 9
Could a third party verify it without an account and without contacting you?
The person who needs convincing is usually the one who has decided not to take your word for it. Any record that routes through you fails at exactly this point.
If yes: That is the standard worth holding.
If no: Whatever you have is an internal note rather than evidence.
What to do with your answers
Three outcomes. Most teams land in the middle one.
Clear
You answered no to questions 1 or 2, or yes all the way through to 9. Either you are outside scope today or you already have records a third party can check. Re-run this when you enter a new market or change how your team produces content.
Partly exposed
You are in scope and you are disclosing, but questions 8 and 9 came back weak. This is where most teams land. The obligation is being met; the ability to demonstrate it is not. Fix it going forward first, at the point of publication, before reaching backwards.
Exposed
You are in scope and either not disclosing, or disclosing inaccurately at question 6. Start there, because an inaccurate declaration is a worse position than a missing one. Then work on the record.
Keep a copy
The page prints cleanly, so the fastest way to keep this is your browser. Nothing is gated and nothing needs an address.
Save it as a PDF
Prints as a clean nine-point checklist with the outcomes, without the navigation.
Updates when the guidance moves Optional
Article 50 guidance is still settling. Leave an address only if you want to hear when something changes. You do not need this to use the checklist.
Frequently asked questions
Is this checklist legal advice?
No. It is a structured way to find out which questions apply to you and where your gaps are. Whether a specific piece of content falls under Article 50, and what that means for your organisation, is a question for a lawyer who knows your situation.
Do I have to label content that a model only helped me research?
That is the AI assisted case and it is a real declaration rather than a lesser one. The test is whether a model contributed to producing the work, not whether its words survived into the final draft.
We are not an EU company. Does this still apply?
Possibly. Scope follows where the output lands rather than where you are registered. A company publishing AI-generated content into the EU market should work through this list and take advice on its specific position rather than assume the border helps.
Is a notice in our terms or privacy policy enough?
Not on its own. Disclosure has to reach the person at the point they encounter the content. A policy document they never open does not do that, and it is also not a record of what was made, by whom, or when.
Want the answer for your own setup?
The exposure calculator asks about what you publish and where it goes, and gives you a result rather than a list to work through yourself.
Check if you are exposedإجابات سريعة
كيف تعرف إن كانت المادة 50 تنطبق على محتواك؟
ثلاثة أسئلة تحدد النطاق: هل يصل المحتوى إلى أشخاص في الاتحاد الأوروبي، وهل وُلّد أو عُدّل شيء منه بنظام ذكاء اصطناعي، وهل تنشر أنت المخرَج بدل مجرد توفير النظام. ثلاث إجابات بنعم تعني أنك مشغّل وأن واجب الإفصاح يقع عليك.
ما الدليل الذي ستحتاجه إذا نازع أحدهم إعلاناً عن الذكاء الاصطناعي؟
سجل مرتبط بالملف بعينه عبر بصمة تجزئة تشفيرية، يحمل الإعلان، ومثبَّت زمنياً بطابع زمني إلكتروني مؤهل، وقابل للتحقق من طرف ثالث دون حساب ودون الاتصال بك. أما تواريخ الملفات وسلاسل البريد وسجلات الإصدارات فتسقط عند الجزء الأخير.