---
name: "eu-ai-act-transparency-assessor-oliver-schmidt-prietz"
description: "Assesses which of the Art. 50(1)-(5) transparency obligations of the EU AI Act apply to a given AI system's provider or deployer, grounded in the final Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content (June 2026) and the Commission's draft Art. 50 Guidelines. Covers AI-chatbot disclosure, deepfake and synthetic-content marking/watermarking, emotion-recognition and biometric-categorisation notices, the machine-readable marking duty, the obviousness exceptions, and the implementation timeline. Outputs a formal mini-report plus a per-obligation compliance checklist with gap flags. For breadth-first tier triage use the EU AI Act System Classifier; for raw Art. 50 text and Q&A use the EU AI Act Knowledge Base; for the full role x tier matrix use the EU AI Act Obligations Mapper."
metadata:
  author: "Oliver Schmidt-Prietz"
  license: "agpl-3.0"
  version: "2026-07-05"
---

# EU AI Act — Article 50 Transparency Assessor

Identify which **Article 50 transparency duties** (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) apply to a system, decide
**what must be implemented and by when**, and produce a formal mini-report plus a per-obligation
compliance checklist. Works standalone, or ingests a prior classifier `ASSESSMENT CONTEXT` block.

## Disclaimer (show at session start, do not block)

> **Important:** This skill provides structured Art. 50 transparency guidance based on the EU AI Act
> (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), the final **Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content**
> (10 Jun 2026), and the Commission's **draft** Art. 50 Guidelines (8 May 2026). It is **not legal
> advice**; final decisions need qualified counsel, and only the **CJEU** can authoritatively interpret
> Art. 50.
> • **Penalty band:** non-compliance is **Tier 2 — up to EUR 15,000,000 or 3% of worldwide annual
> turnover** (Art. 99(4)(g); €750k for EU bodies). *Not* the €35M / 7% band (that is Art. 5 prohibited practices).
> • **Dates:** Art. 50 applies from **2 August 2026** (Chapter IV general application — *not* the 2 Aug
> 2025 tranche). The 50(2) **legacy-system marking grace to 2 December 2026** is now **adopted** — the Digital
> Omnibus cleared the European Parliament (Jun 2026) and the **Council (final green light, 29 Jun 2026)** and
> is **awaiting OJ publication** ("shortly"; in force the 3rd day after). Treat 2 Dec 2026 as near-settled;
> only until the OJ text appears does the statutory 2 Aug 2026 date formally still govern legacy systems.
> Recommend a quick live OJ / law-tracker check.
> • **Soft law:** the Code of Practice is **final but voluntary** and under adequacy assessment (still
> pending) — adherence is **not conclusive evidence** of compliance. The Commission Guidelines are still
> **draft** (8 May 2026; consultation closed 3 Jun 2026). See [references/sources.md](references/sources.md)
> for the live source manifest and uncertainty tiers.

---

## Start here: pick a mode (ask this first)

Before intake, offer the user a route — do **not** default straight to the full report:

> **How deep do you need to go?**
> **1. Quick triage** — a yes/no on which duties bite and the earliest deadline (a few questions, a short answer).
> **2. Full assessment** — the formal mini-report + per-obligation checklist + portable compliance block.
> **3. Implementation plan** — what product / legal / engineering actually has to build, per triggered duty.

- **Quick triage** → run a compressed intake (role + what it does + market date), output only the
  **Bottom line** block (see Phase 6.0) and the top gaps; then offer to escalate to Full.
- **Full assessment** → the whole six-phase workflow.
- **Implementation plan** → Phases 1–4 focused on the build, load
  [references/implementation-checklists.md](references/implementation-checklists.md).

If the user doesn't choose, assume **Quick triage** and offer to go deeper — leading light beats a wall of report.

## Uncertainty markers (use these in every output)

Tag each material statement so the user can see how firm it is (this is the user-facing view of the
statute / soft-law / open-issue strata — see [references/sources.md](references/sources.md)):

- **[Settled law]** — the Regulation (Art. 50, 3(60), 99(4)(g)); in force.
- **[Draft guidance]** — the Commission Art. 50 Guidelines (draft, 8 May 2026); persuasive, non-binding.
- **[Best practice]** — the voluntary Code of Practice / EU icon set; adherence ≠ conclusive evidence.
- **[Open issue]** — adopted-but-unpublished (Omnibus/OJ), pending (CoP adequacy assessment), or un-litigated
  (no CJEU ruling on Art. 50).

State the **most load-bearing** uncertainty explicitly (e.g. "the 2 Dec 2026 grace is **[Open issue]** until OJ").

---

## When to Search the Web (run quietly; report as one line)

Do these checks **without narrating the research**. Collapse the result into a single **Source status** line
in the output (Phase 6.0), e.g.:
`Source status (checked <date>): Guidelines draft · Omnibus adopted, awaiting OJ · CoP adequacy pending · icons published.`

**On activation — always search for (these change month to month):**
```
EU AI Act Article 50 Commission guidelines final adopted 2026
Code of Practice transparency AI-generated content adequacy assessment AI Board 2026
```

**Digital Omnibus OJ check — always (the 2 Dec 2026 grace is adopted, awaiting OJ publication):**
```
Digital Omnibus AI Act Article 50 watermarking grace 2 December 2026 Official Journal published
```

**For 50(2) marking / standards:**
```
EU AI Act Art 50(2) machine-readable marking C2PA implementing act standard 2026
AI Office transparency code signatories list 22 July 2026
```

**For 50(4) labelling / icons:**
```
EU official AI-generated content labelling icons set 2026
```

If web results conflict with this skill's reference files, **prefer the newer official source** and tell
the user what changed.

---

## Workflow: Ask Questions ONE AT A TIME

Read the reference files as each phase needs them. Do not dump all questions at once — this is a
conversational assessment.

### Phase 1: Intake

**Prior Assessment Context (optional):**
> "If you have already run another EU AI Act skill (e.g. the classifier), paste its `ASSESSMENT CONTEXT`
> block here. I'll use `Art. 50:`, `Role:`, `Classification:`, and `GPAI:` to skip questions you've
> already answered."

If a block is provided:
- a non-empty `Art. 50: [triggers]` → pre-populate Phase 3 and confirm rather than re-derive;
- `Role:` → satisfies Phase 2;
- `Classification:` / `GPAI:` → informs the Art. 50 ↔ Art. 53 layering note (Phase 4);
- if any field conflicts with the user's answers, **flag the inconsistency** before proceeding.

If no block is provided, run the intake as a **short decision-tree, one step at a time** — not one dense
four-part question (honour the "one at a time" rule below). Walk these in order, adapting to answers:

1. **What does the system do?** (one-line description)
2. **Does it generate content?** If yes, **which modalities** — audio / image / video / text?
3. **Does it interact directly with people?** (chatbot, voice agent, autonomous agent)
4. **What's your role** — do you **build/place it on the market** (provider), **use it under your authority**
   (deployer), or **both**?
5. **When was it / will it be placed on the EU market?** — this date drives the 50(2) grace logic.

In **Quick triage** mode, ask only 2, 4 and 5 (plus 3 if relevant) and skip to the Bottom line.
Once you have the facts, **echo them back** as a "Facts I'm relying on" block (Phase 6.6) and ask the user
to correct anything before you analyse.

Read [references/art50-duties.md](references/art50-duties.md) for the duty definitions before Phase 3.

### Phase 2: Role determination

Art. 50 splits duties by role:

| Duty | Binds |
|------|-------|
| 50(1) interaction disclosure, 50(2) synthetic-content marking | **Provider** |
| 50(3) emotion/biometric notice, 50(4) deepfake/PI-text labelling | **Deployer** |
| 50(5) delivery quality | whoever owes (1)–(4) |

- If the context block carries `Role:`, use it.
- Otherwise ask whether the organisation **builds/places the system on the market** (provider), **uses it
  under its own authority** (deployer), or **both** (a provider that also deploys owes all four duties).
- For Art. 25 quasi-provider / substantial-modification depth (a rebrand or material fine-tuning can make
  a deployer a provider), **route to `ai-act-roles`** rather than re-deriving it here.

### Phase 3: Trigger determination (one sub-section per duty)

For each duty: apply the **trigger test**, then the **obviousness / exception test**. Read
[references/obviousness-and-exceptions.md](references/obviousness-and-exceptions.md).

**3.1 — Art. 50(1) interaction disclosure (provider).**
Trigger: the system interacts directly with natural persons. Then test **obviousness** against the
**average-consumer** multi-factor standard (context, vulnerable groups, AI literacy, realism); dev-only
code assistants and in-game NPCs are plausibly "obvious", but for general-audience systems and **AI
companions** the exemption is largely closed. **What does *not* satisfy 50(1)** (draft Guidelines para. 35):
disclosure buried in **T&Cs**, **machine-readable signals alone**, a generic "**assistant**" label, or
"this system uses LLMs". **Agentic AI** must self-disclose in every reasonably-foreseeable human interaction
(para. 28). Authorised law-enforcement use is the only statutory exception.

**3.2 — Art. 50(2) synthetic-content marking (provider).**
Trigger: the system generates synthetic audio/image/video/text — **not GPAI-specific**; single-purpose
tools count, and **machine translation is IN scope** (a translation engine generates new text; draft
Guidelines para. 54). Test the **assistive-function** exemption (trivial in-place editing that preserves
meaning → out; generation → in). Note the Guidelines' carve-outs: **source code** (para. 64), narrow
**cumulative B2B/industrial** (para. 81), **in-game generation** (para. 82). **Flag the market-placement
date** — it decides whether the legacy grace applies (Phase 5).

**3.3 — Art. 50(3) emotion-recognition / biometric-categorisation notice (deployer).**
Trigger: the system performs emotion recognition or biometric categorisation. **First check Art. 5:** if
the use is in the workplace/education (5(1)(f)) or targets sensitive characteristics (5(1)(g)) it is
**prohibited** — 50(3) does not apply and the Art. 5 violation governs. Otherwise the 50(3) notice is owed
**in addition to** any high-risk/Art. 5 analysis and **regardless of risk tier** — it covers **all**
biometric categorisation, *including non-high-risk* age- or gender-inference for ads or analytics
(para. 98). **Race/ethnicity inference is not a 50(3) example — it is a *prohibited* 5(1)(g)
categorisation; see the Art. 5 gate above.** Coordinate with GDPR Art. 13/14.

**3.4 — Art. 50(4) deepfake & public-interest-text labelling (deployer).**
Two steps, not one categorical rule. **Step 1 — is it a deepfake?** Apply the Art. 3(60) four-element test
(draft Guidelines para. 107): *appreciable resemblance · capable of existing in reality · existing persons/
objects/places/**entities**/events · false authenticity judged by the **actual audience** (para. 108)*. A
photorealistic **invented** person is IN (plausibly could exist); dragons/impossible content are OUT; a
substantive AI edit of a journalistic image can be IN. **Step 2 — exception?** law enforcement; **evidently**
artistic/creative/fictional → *proportionate* disclosure (form only); public-interest **text** under human
editorial review. **Marketing has no blanket pass** — *primarily-commercial* content gets **full disclosure**
(para. 114); don't say marketing categorically qualifies, nor that it never can. (Or the AI-text limb:
public-interest text without human editorial control.)

**3.5 — Art. 50(5) delivery quality (cross-cutting).**
For every triggered duty, disclosure must be clear, distinguishable, timely (≤ first interaction/exposure)
and accessible — conform to the **applicable accessibility requirements** (assess EAA applicability; use
**WCAG AA** as the design benchmark for web/mobile UI). Art. 50(5) does not itself name the EAA.

**Close Phase 3 with the trigger-summary table:**

| Duty | Binds | Triggered? | Trigger basis | Obviousness / Exception verdict |
|------|-------|-----------|---------------|---------------------------------|
| 50(1) | Provider | [Y/N] | … | … |
| 50(2) | Provider | [Y/N] | … | … |
| 50(3) | Deployer | [Y/N] | … | … |
| 50(4) | Deployer | [Y/N] | … | … |
| 50(5) | [owner] | [Y/N] | … | … |

### Phase 4: Implementation deep-dive (per triggered duty)

For each **triggered** duty, explain what to build. Load the matching reference:

- **50(2) marking** → [references/code-of-practice-final.md](references/code-of-practice-final.md).
  Distinguish **three tiers**: (1) **statutory floor** *[Settled law]* — machine-readable + detectable, four
  criteria *"as far as technically feasible"* (no technique and no "two layers" mandated); (2) **Code route**
  *[Best practice]* — **≥ 2 layers** (signed metadata + imperceptible watermark), detection is **half the
  duty** (free-of-charge, per-technique), text **> 200 tokens must be watermarked**; (3) robust best practice.
  Adherence to the Code is **not conclusive evidence** of compliance. If the system uses a GPAI model:
  Art. 50(2) binds it at the **system** layer; model-level marking is **encouraged best practice** (Guidelines
  paras. 24/70; Code Measure 1.1.2) — **not** an Art. 53(1)(d) duty (53(1)(d) is the training-data summary).
- **50(4) labelling** → [references/eu-labelling-icons.md](references/eu-labelling-icons.md): the **three
  official EU icons** (**Basic**, **Fully AI-Generated**, **Partially AI-Modified**) — icons **optional**, the
  mandatory core is the capitalised **"AI"** acronym; **GENERATED/MODIFIED** is optional and copyright-
  sensitive; **audio needs a mandatory audible disclaimer**; embed-by-default placement, WCAG contrast,
  persistence. For **published text**, the Commitment 4 editorial-responsibility policy.
- **50(1) / 50(3) notices** → notice content, placement, and timing (Art. 50(5)); for 50(3), the GDPR
  Art. 13/14 coordination.

Concrete action items per role are in
[references/implementation-checklists.md](references/implementation-checklists.md).

### Phase 5: Dated roadmap

Read [references/timeline-and-grace.md](references/timeline-and-grace.md). Anchor the roadmap on:

- **22 Jul 2026** — Code **initial-signatory** form deadline (to appear on the list published before 2 Aug
  2026; signing is encouraged, not mandatory, and possible later too).
- **2 Aug 2026** — 50(1)/(3)/(4) and 50(2) for newly-placed systems apply, **no transition**.
- **2 Dec 2026** — legacy 50(2) marking — **[Open issue → near-settled]**: the Digital Omnibus grace is
  **adopted** (EP Jun 2026; Council final green light **29 Jun 2026**) and **awaiting OJ publication** (in
  force the 3rd day after). Until the OJ text appears, 2 Aug 2026 formally still governs legacy systems.
  **Recommend a quick live OJ / law-tracker check** — but do not overstate the residual risk.
- **2 Feb 2027** — the Code's watermark-detection **interoperability** obligation (distinct from the
  superseded original legacy-marking proposal of the same date).
- Content already public **before 2 Aug 2026** needs **no retrospective** marking/labelling.

### Phase 6: Output (lead light, then the formal artifacts)

Read [references/report-template-art50.md](references/report-template-art50.md). **Always show 6.0–6.6 first**
as a short conversational answer; only produce the heavy artifacts (a)–(c) when the user is in **Full**
mode or asks for them.

- **6.0 Bottom line** (always, ≤ 6 lines): role · duties triggered · earliest deadline · biggest gap · the
  one load-bearing legal uncertainty (tagged with an uncertainty marker).
- **6.5 Readiness** (operational indicator, **not** legal advice): `Readiness: Low / Med / High` ·
  `Critical blockers: N` · `Must-fix before deadline: N` · `Counsel review needed: yes/no`.
- **6.6 Facts I'm relying on**: the intake echoed back, so the user can correct a misread before trusting
  the analysis.
- **Source status** line: one line, `checked <date>`, per the uncertainty markers.

Then, on request / in Full mode:

1. **(a) the mini-report** (Subject/Scope → Role → Trigger analysis → Implementation → Exceptions →
   Roadmap → Gaps + penalty exposure → Conclusion);
2. **(b) the per-obligation checklist** with `✓ / ◐ / ✗ / N/A` gap flags and a SUMMARY line;
3. **(c) the portable `ART. 50 TRANSPARENCY COMPLIANCE BLOCK`** for chaining.

Offer an **optional .docx export** by handing the report to the **`ai-act-report`** skill (its Phase 4
Word export) — do not re-implement document generation here. This skill **does not** emit RoPA's
`interchange-schema.json`.

---

## Related skills

- **`ai-act-classifier`** — upstream triage: is it an AI system, which risk tier, which 50 triggers fire.
  Paste its `ASSESSMENT CONTEXT` into Phase 1 to skip re-triage.
- **`ai-act-roles`** — Art. 25 quasi-provider / substantial-modification depth (defer the role-edge cases).
- **`ai-act-knowledge`** — verbatim Art. 50 regulation text, recitals, and Q&A.
- **`ai-act-obligations`** — the full role × tier obligation matrix (Art. 50 is a slice of it).
- **`ai-act-report`** — consolidated 9-section Prüfbericht and the .docx export this skill defers to.

---

## Critical Reminders

1. **Penalty is €15M / 3% (Tier 2, Art. 99(4)(g); €750k EU bodies)** — never the €35M / 7% Art. 5 band.
2. **The 2 Dec 2026 legacy-marking grace is ADOPTED, awaiting OJ** — the Digital Omnibus cleared EP (Jun 2026)
   and Council (final green light 29 Jun 2026); treat 2 Dec 2026 as near-settled, recommend a live OJ check,
   and note 2 Aug 2026 formally governs only until the OJ text appears. **Do not** call it "politically agreed"
   or "conditional / may not happen".
3. **The Code of Practice is voluntary and adherence is not conclusive evidence of compliance** — it is a
   strong evidentiary anchor, not a safe harbour; do **not** call it a "presumption of conformity". Separate
   the **statutory floor** from the **Code's layered architecture**.
4. **The Commission Art. 50 Guidelines are draft (8 May 2026)** — non-binding; only the CJEU is authoritative.
5. **Agentic AI self-discloses** in every reasonably-foreseeable human interaction (Guidelines para. 28).
   50(1) is **not** satisfied by T&Cs, machine-readable signals alone, "assistant", or "uses LLMs" (para. 35).
6. **50(3) is gated by Art. 5** (workplace/education emotion recognition and sensitive biometric
   categorisation are prohibited — a notice cannot cure it), but otherwise applies **additively and to all
   biometric categorisation, incl. non-high-risk** age- or gender-inference (para. 98) — race/ethnicity
   inference is itself *prohibited* under 5(1)(g), not a 50(3) case.
7. **Deepfake = Art. 3(60)** — apply the **four-element test** (para. 107); a photorealistic **invented**
   person is IN. **Marketing has no blanket pass**: primarily-commercial content gets full disclosure — but
   don't say marketing can *never* be artistic. **Machine translation is IN scope** (para. 54).
8. **Model-level GPAI marking is encouraged best practice — NOT an Art. 53(1)(d) duty** (53(1)(d) is the
   training-data summary). Art. 50(2) binds the **AI-system** layer, including GPAI systems.
9. **50(2): no single technique** satisfies all four criteria; **text > 200 tokens must be watermarked**;
   **detection is half the duty**. **No retrospective marking** of content already public before 2 Aug 2026.
10. **Provider 50(2) marking ≠ deployer 50(4) labelling** — distinct duties on distinct parties; a deepfake
    can require both. A platform **merely passing on** third-party content is **not a deployer** (para. 12).