Grandfathering
Grandfathering refers to the rule under which the Regulation applies to AI systems already placed on the market before the application date of the high-risk block only if they undergo a substantial modification affecting their design. This protection does not extend to prohibited practices — the prohibition applies to those immediately, with no grace period.
The rule is set out in Article 111(1)–(4). Its practical significance is that an already-operating, previously deployed system does not have to be automatically brought into retroactive compliance with the high-risk requirements — only if the provider carries out a substantial modification affecting its design. This gives important protection for continuity, but also hides a trap: many companies wrongly believe this protection also extends to prohibited practices, whereas Article 111 expressly excludes them from the transitional rules — a system placed on the market in 2024 that performs workplace emotion recognition has been unlawful since 2 February 2025, regardless of it being a legacy system. For large-scale systems used by public authorities, Article 111(2) grants a further, narrower transition until 2 August 2030.
For an old, legacy AI system, many assume "it's already deployed, nothing to worry about" — for prohibited practices this is a dangerously false assumption, since grandfathering does not extend to them.
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Start freeRelated terms
- Digital Omnibus on AIThe Digital Omnibus on AI — (EU) 2026/1744 — is a simplification regulation amending the AI Act, published in the Official Journal on 24 July 2026 and in force since 27 July 2026. The grace periods it introduced — such as the delay to the high-risk block and regulatory sandboxes, and the softening of Article 4 — are current law, not a proposal.
- Substantial modificationA substantial modification is a change to an AI system after it has been placed on the market or put into service, which is not foreseen or planned in the initial conformity assessment, and which affects compliance with the high-risk requirements or modifies the intended purpose for which it was assessed. Anyone who makes a substantial modification to a system already on the market becomes a provider under Article 25.
- Prohibited AI practiceArticle 5(1) prohibits eight AI practices outright: subliminal or deceptive manipulation, exploitation of vulnerabilities, social scoring, predicting criminal offending from profiling alone, untargeted scraping of facial images, emotion recognition in the workplace and education, biometric categorisation to infer protected characteristics, and real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces. There is no compliance pathway for these.
Related questions in the knowledge base (Hungarian)
- Vonatkozik az AI Act a már korábban bevezetett AI-rendszereinkre?Nem automatikusan. A 111. cikk (2) bekezdése szerint a magas kockázatú blokk alkalmazási dátuma előtt forgalomba hozott rendszerekre a rendelet csak akkor alkalmazandó, ha azok tervezésüket érintő lényeges változáson mennek keresztül. A tilalmakra viszont ez a védelem nem terjed ki.
- Van-e türelmi idő az AI Act tilalmaira és az AI-jártassági kötelezettségre?Nincs. Az 5. cikk tilalmai és a 4. cikk 2025. február 2. óta türelmi idő nélkül alkalmazandók, és a 111. cikk grandfathering-szabályai kifejezetten nem terjednek ki az 5. cikkre. Egy 2024-ben piacra dobott, munkahelyi érzelemfelismerést végző rendszer 2025. február 2. óta jogellenes, függetlenül attól, hogy örökölt.