Legal Alert | European commission launches public consultation for guidelines and code of practice on AI transparency

Background

On 4 September 2025, the European Commission launched a Public Consultation to support the development of: (i) Guidelines clarifying the interpretation and scope of Article 50 of the Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024, laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (EU AI Act); and (ii) a voluntary Code of Practice setting out technical measures to operationalise the transparency requirements.

The Article 50 of the EU AI Act imposes obligations on providers and deployers of AI systems to ensure that users are informed when they:

• Interact with an AI system (unless it is self-evident);
• Are exposed to emotion recognition or biometric categorisation systems;
• Are presented with AI-generated or manipulated content, including deepfakes, which must be clearly disclosed in a machine-readable format (subject to limited exceptions).

This Public Consultation is open until 2 October 2025, which is also the deadline for stakeholders to submit expressions of interest to participate directly in the final drafting of the Code of Practice.

Objectives and Scope

The Commission’s initiative pursues complementary objectives:

• The Guidelines aim to provide interpretive clarity on Article 50 of the EU AI Act, including the definitions of covered systems and content, scope of obligations and exceptions and consistency in supervisory application across member states;
• The Code of Practice aims to establish technical solutions to implement Article 50 obligations in practice such as watermarking and metadata tagging, cryptographic methods, logging and digital fingerprinting.

Once endorsed, the Code of Practice will serve as a compliance benchmark, providing stakeholders with a route for conformity with transparency duties.

Implementation Timeline

Recommended Actions

The AI providers and deployers should consider:

• Conduct a compliance gap analysis against Article 50 of the EU AI Act requirements (e.g., user disclosures, content labelling, biometric notifications);
• Submit consultation responses and apply to join the drafting of the Code of Practice.

The industry stakeholders and associations should consider:

• Engage proactively in the multi-stakeholder drafting process of the technical standards.

Next Steps

• The consultation represents a decisive step in operationalising Article 50 of the EU AI Act.

Timely engagement will enable stakeholders not only to prepare for binding transparency obligations effective from 2 August 2026, but also to influence the forthcoming Code of Practice, which is expected to become the central reference framework for compliance.
Morais Leitão’s technology team will continue to monitor these developments associated with the EU AI Act.

Contact us for further information.