Free check

The Article 50 self-check: five questions, a real answer

A free five-question Article 50 scoping check built on the Commission's FAQ. Runs in your browser, collects nothing, gives a real answer.

Five questions, built directly on the Commission's Article 50 FAQ (Reg. (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 50, in force since ). It runs entirely in your browser, collects nothing, and every answer shows its implication in plain text — so it works, and tells the truth, even with JavaScript off.

Last reviewed· Every dated claim on this page links to its source.

Each answer's implication is printed beneath it, so you can read this page as a briefing. Selecting answers assembles the combined summary at the end.

01Do people in the EU use your product, or see its output?

The Commission’s scope sentence turns on exactly this: non-EU providers are subject to the AI Act “if the output of their AI system is used in the EU”. Continue.

On that answer, the scope hook the Commission describes is not engaged. Re-run this check if EU users arrive, and note the rest of the questions for that day.

02Does your product present an AI system that interacts directly with people — a chatbot, voice agent, or assistant?

Then the interaction-disclosure duty is the first thing to check: people must be informed they are interacting with an AI system, unless this is obvious.

Then the disclosure duty for interactions is likely not your surface — the marking questions below may still be.

03Before the first interaction, is the person clearly told they are talking to an AI?

Good. Keep a dated screenshot: the disclosure is cheap, the evidence of when it existed is what gets asked for later.

That is the exact gap Article 50 describes. It is also the cheapest gap on this page to close.

Skip forward to the content questions.

04Does your product publish AI-generated or manipulated content — text, images, audio or video — that people in the EU see?

Then the machine-readable marking duty is in play, and the exemptions below decide how much of it actually applies to you.

Then the marking duty is likely not your surface.

05For that content: is it marked in a machine-readable way — or does it fall under a published exemption?

Good. As with the disclosure: keep dated evidence of what is marked and how.

The Commission’s list: short sequences of numbers, symbols or letters; source code; machine-to-machine outputs; closed-loop industrial uses; assistive standard editing. If your content honestly fits, note which exemption and why — that note is your evidence.

That is a scoping question worth answering precisely, because marking everything is as wrong as marking nothing — the exemptions exist so you don’t over-build.

Then this duty is likely not your surface.

What this check is, and is not

Stated before you use it, not after.

It is a structured reading of your own answers against the Commission's published FAQ — the same first pass I run when someone emails the desk. It is not legal advice, it cannot tell you that you are “in scope” or “compliant”, and it does not try to: those are conclusions that belong to your counsel. What it gives you is the fact pattern, organised, with the source underneath (European Commission, “Transparency obligations under Article 50 AI Act” (FAQ), retrieved ).

If this is your situation: Close the gap this check finds — €2,500 fixed, 10 working days — fixed fee, stated duration, evidence pack. Or email the desk with what you're seeing.

Which obligation is closest?

Tell me the deadline you are looking at and what your site does. You get a straight answer about whether it applies to you, and a fixed price if it does.

Email the deskSee every date

Direct to hello@sophura.com · one person, named, who answers. I don’t give legal advice.