EU AI Act, Article 50
Machine-readable, detectable marks on AI output; a clear notice on deepfakes and AI public-interest text.
In short
- Where: European Union
- Status: In force since 2 August 2026; AI systems already on the market by 2 December 2026
- Who: Generative AI providers (marking); deployers (deepfakes, news text)
- Covers: AI-generated content generally
- Kennmarq.com: covers images and video today; audio: waits for spoken notices in audio for deep fakes (expected December 2026); text: waits for text (expected March 2027).
Updated 4 November 2026; source checked 4 November 2026. Sources are government sites. This page explains what Kennmarq.com does; it isn't legal advice.
What it asks of each kind of file
| File | What it asks | Kennmarq.com today |
|---|---|---|
| Images | machine-readable marks (a watermark or metadata); a visible label reading “AI”, on deep fakes | Covered |
| Video | machine-readable marks (a watermark or metadata); a visible label reading “AI”, on deep fakes | Covered |
| Audio | machine-readable marks (a watermark or metadata); a notice people can hear, on deep fakes | Waits for spoken notices in audio for deep fakes (expected December 2026) |
| Text | machine-readable marks (a watermark or metadata); a visible label reading “AI” | Waits for text (expected March 2027) |
In the API
Send markets=eu on each call to POST /v1/mark: a call that lacks what the EU's rules need is refused before anything is counted, and each mark gets a receipt of what it carries for each law.
| File | Made with AI | A deep fake (deepfake=true) |
|---|---|---|
| Picture | Watermark and Content Credentials | Watermark, Content Credentials and the visible label |
| Clip | Watermark and Content Credentials | Watermark, Content Credentials and the visible label |
| Song | Watermark and Content Credentials | Refused for now: the EU's deep fakes in sound need a spoken notice (Art. 50(4)), which we don't add yet. |
Mark a picture for the EU
curl https://api.kennmarq.com/v1/mark \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KENNMARQ_API_KEY" \
-F file=@image.png \
-F source=created \
-F markets=eu \
-o image.marked.pngAn AI coding agent gets the same answer from the MCP tool get_requirements (MCP server).
Official text
- EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act)
- EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI)
- European Commission, AI Act Service Desk: Article 50
- European Commission, AI Act Service Desk: Article 111
- European Commission, Guidelines on Article 50 transparency obligations
- European Commission, Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-generated Content
- European Commission, Code of Practice final text (PDF)
- European Commission, EU icons for labelling AI-generated content
More
- Step by step: the guide to EU AI Act, Article 50
- On the blog: EU AI Act Article 50: the 2 December 2026 marking deadline
- Every rule in the EU, and every country's