European UnionAI Act, Article 86 (right to explanation of individual decision-making)
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Article 86
Amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744, which moved its start date from to for a high-risk AI system classified under Article 6(2) and Annex III.
An AI risk obligations rule binding public and private bodies.
- Private right of action
- No
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- Operator establishment, Place of effect
- Obligation class
- Data subject rights
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- For a decision based on a high-risk AI system placed on the market or put into service, this right takes effect on for a system classified under Article 6(2) and Annex III; a system already on the market before then is reached only once its design changes significantly, or by if it is intended for use by public authorities.
- If you are the deployer of a high-risk AI system listed in Annex III, other than the Annex III point 2 critical-infrastructure use case, and your decision based on the system's output produces a legal effect, or similarly significantly affects a person in a way they consider to adversely impact their health, safety or fundamental rights, give that person, on request, a clear and meaningful explanation of the AI system's role in the decision-making procedure and the main elements of the decision.
- You do not owe this explanation where Union or national law, consistent with Union law, provides an exception or restriction, or where the person already holds an equivalent right under other Union law.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MEASURE 2.9The AI model is explained, validated, and documented, and AI system output is interpreted within its context – as identified in the MAP function – to inform responsible use and governance.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-04Data Privacy
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-006Data Quality & Classification/Sensitivity
- AIR-DET-021Agent Decision Audit and Explainability
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Who enforces it
Settledness
Chapter IX applies from under Article 113's general rule, and Article 113 as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 names no other date for it. Article 86(1) reaches only a 'high-risk AI system listed in Annex III', and Article 6(2), which makes an Annex III system high-risk, applies from under amended Article 113, third paragraph, point (c)(i).
- As of
- Open questions
- Does the Article 86 right reach any decision before , when the Article 6(2) rule that classifies an Annex III system as high-risk starts to apply?
What it makes you log
Who may demand the log
Data subject
What the log must hold
Decision basis
Logging duty
The Article does not use the words log, record or documentation, but a deployer cannot give a clear and meaningful explanation of the AI system's role in a specific decision on request unless it can reconstruct the decision's basis, which requires having kept enough of the record to do so. The Article gives the affected person a right against the deployer to an explanation of the decision, and names no review of a kept record by a regulator or a court, and so carries no audit expectation.
- Kind
- Implicit
- As of
- Provision
- Article 86(1)
- Trigger
- automated_decisions
Also on the record
EEA status
- Status
- Pending
- Source link
- https://www.efta.int/eea-lex/32024r1689
What this law does
A natural person subject to a deployer's decision based on the output of a high-risk AI system listed in Annex III, other than an Annex III point 2 (critical infrastructure) system, that produces legal effects or similarly significantly affects them in a way they consider to adversely impact their health, safety or fundamental rights, has the right to obtain from the deployer a clear and meaningful explanation of the role the AI system played in the decision-making procedure and the main elements of the decision taken.
The right does not apply where Union or national law, consistent with Union law, provides an exception or restriction, and it applies only to the extent no other provision of Union law already grants an equivalent right.
Article 86 sits in Chapter IX, Section 4 (remedies), which keeps the Regulation's general application date of , but the right reaches only decisions based on a high-risk system listed in Annex III, and the Digital Omnibus on AI (Regulation (EU) 2026/1744) moved Chapter III, Sections 1 to 3, which hold the Article 6(2) rule that classifies an Annex III system as high-risk, to .
The Omnibus also rewrote Article 111(2) so that the Regulation reaches the operators of a high-risk AI system placed on the market or put into service before that date only if, from that date, the system's design changes significantly, which means no deployer of a system placed on the market or put into service owes an explanation under this Article before ; the providers and deployers of a system intended for use by public authorities must take the necessary steps to comply by .
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app makes high-risk automated decisions.
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