{"answer_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:answer:artikel-87-ai-act","canonical_page":"https://www.praxikon.com/en/antwoord/artikel-87-ai-act","query":"What does Article 87 of the AI Act say about reporting of infringements and protection of reporting persons?","lang":"en","view":"full","mode":"obligation","question":"What does Article 87 of the AI Act say about reporting of infringements and protection of reporting persons?","situation":"Article 87 of the AI Act covers reporting of infringements and protection of reporting persons. The whistleblower Directive applies to the reporting of infringements of the AI Regulation and to the protection of the persons who report them. For an organisation that falls under that Directive this means a report about an AI system runs through the same protected channel as any other report, and a person reporting who meets the conditions of that Directive may not be disadvantaged for it. Whether you fall under that Directive is not stated in Article 87 but in national transposition law. This provision concerns the deployer and the provider of an AI system. This provision has applied since 2 August 2026.","likely_role":null,"note":null,"matched_terms":[],"dataset":{"id":"praxikon:sys:registry:dataset:ai-act-implementation-graph","version":"2.2.0","schema_version":"1.5.0","effective_at":"2026-08-08T00:00:00.000Z","known_at":"2026-09-06T00:00:00.000Z","last_reviewed_at":"2026-08-08T00:00:00.000Z","licence":"https://www.praxikon.com/nl/legal/terms","canonical_url":"https://www.praxikon.com/api/v1/entities"},"obligations":[{"slug":"article-87-reporting-infringements","label":"Article 87: reporting of infringements and protection of reporting persons","summary":"The whistleblower Directive applies to the reporting of infringements of the AI Regulation and to the protection of the persons who report them. For an organisation that falls under that Directive this means a report about an AI system runs through the same protected channel as any other report, and a person reporting who meets the conditions of that Directive may not be disadvantaged for it. Whether you fall under that Directive is not stated in Article 87 but in national transposition law.","legal_status":"applicable","deadline_at":"2026-08-02T00:00:00.000Z","high_risk_regime_from":null,"human_page":"https://www.praxikon.com/en/verplichtingen/article-87-reporting-infringements","api":"https://www.praxikon.com/api/v1/obligations?lang=en","official_source":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj","citations":[{"kind":"official_fact","statement":"Directive (EU) 2019/1937 shall apply to the reporting of infringements of this Regulation and the protection of persons reporting such infringements.","source_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:reg-eu-2024-1689","source_locator":"Article 87","source_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj"},{"kind":"editorial_interpretation","statement":"This article is short because the work was done elsewhere, and that is exactly why it gets overlooked. Its practical meaning lies in the direction of travel: Articles 85 and 86 concern who knocks on your door from outside, Article 87 concerns who steps out from within. That is almost always the first person to notice something. The developer who knows the logging has not run for months, the recruiter who sees the selection model filtering out candidates on something that should never have been in it: they hold the facts a regulator only obtains after an investigation. Three things follow. If you must already have a reporting channel, that channel must be able to receive such a report and recognise it as touching the AI Regulation, because a report handled as a general complaint disappears into a different process. Whether you must have that channel is not a matter of a single number. Article 8(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 imposes the channel requirement in the private sector at fifty or more workers, but paragraph 4 sets that threshold aside for entities falling within the scope of the Union acts referred to in Parts I.B and II of the Annex to that Directive, which cover financial services, anti-money laundering and transport safety among others. Paragraph 7 allows a Member State, after a risk assessment, to require smaller entities as well, and paragraph 9 imposes the requirement on all legal entities in the public sector, with an optional exemption a Member State may make for municipalities with fewer than ten thousand inhabitants or fewer than fifty workers, and for other public entities with fewer than fifty workers. Below fifty workers the question is therefore which sector you are in and what your Member State has decided, not whether you clear the threshold. If you are genuinely outside each of those cases the channel need not exist, and even then the person reporting has somewhere to go: Article 10 of that Directive gives them an external route to the competent authority without having to report internally first, and Article 15 permits public disclosure under conditions. And the protection is not a formality, but it is not enforced through this Regulation: Article 19 of the Directive prohibits retaliation and Article 21 sets out the protective measures, and enforcement runs through national whistleblower law, in the Netherlands through the Huis voor Klokkenluiders and the civil courts. Article 99 of this Regulation does not list Article 87 among the fineable infringements; there is therefore no AI Act fine for disadvantaging a person who reported. Note too that the report here does not depend on a decision or on harm, whereas the right to an explanation in Article 86 does.","source_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:reg-eu-2024-1689","source_locator":"Article 87","source_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj"},{"kind":"editorial_interpretation","statement":"This article is short because the work was done elsewhere, and that is exactly why it gets overlooked. Its practical meaning lies in the direction of travel: Articles 85 and 86 concern who knocks on your door from outside, Article 87 concerns who steps out from within. That is almost always the first person to notice something. The developer who knows the logging has not run for months, the recruiter who sees the selection model filtering out candidates on something that should never have been in it: they hold the facts a regulator only obtains after an investigation. Three things follow. If you must already have a reporting channel, that channel must be able to receive such a report and recognise it as touching the AI Regulation, because a report handled as a general complaint disappears into a different process. Whether you must have that channel is not a matter of a single number. Article 8(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 imposes the channel requirement in the private sector at fifty or more workers, but paragraph 4 sets that threshold aside for entities falling within the scope of the Union acts referred to in Parts I.B and II of the Annex to that Directive, which cover financial services, anti-money laundering and transport safety among others. Paragraph 7 allows a Member State, after a risk assessment, to require smaller entities as well, and paragraph 9 imposes the requirement on all legal entities in the public sector, with an optional exemption a Member State may make for municipalities with fewer than ten thousand inhabitants or fewer than fifty workers, and for other public entities with fewer than fifty workers. Below fifty workers the question is therefore which sector you are in and what your Member State has decided, not whether you clear the threshold. If you are genuinely outside each of those cases the channel need not exist, and even then the person reporting has somewhere to go: Article 10 of that Directive gives them an external route to the competent authority without having to report internally first, and Article 15 permits public disclosure under conditions. And the protection is not a formality, but it is not enforced through this Regulation: Article 19 of the Directive prohibits retaliation and Article 21 sets out the protective measures, and enforcement runs through national whistleblower law, in the Netherlands through the Huis voor Klokkenluiders and the civil courts. Article 99 of this Regulation does not list Article 87 among the fineable infringements; there is therefore no AI Act fine for disadvantaging a person who reported. Note too that the report here does not depend on a decision or on harm, whereas the right to an explanation in Article 86 does.","source_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:dir-eu-2019-1937","source_locator":"Directive (EU) 2019/1937, Article 8(1), (3), (4), (7) and (9)","source_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj"},{"kind":"editorial_interpretation","statement":"This article is short because the work was done elsewhere, and that is exactly why it gets overlooked. Its practical meaning lies in the direction of travel: Articles 85 and 86 concern who knocks on your door from outside, Article 87 concerns who steps out from within. That is almost always the first person to notice something. The developer who knows the logging has not run for months, the recruiter who sees the selection model filtering out candidates on something that should never have been in it: they hold the facts a regulator only obtains after an investigation. Three things follow. If you must already have a reporting channel, that channel must be able to receive such a report and recognise it as touching the AI Regulation, because a report handled as a general complaint disappears into a different process. Whether you must have that channel is not a matter of a single number. Article 8(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 imposes the channel requirement in the private sector at fifty or more workers, but paragraph 4 sets that threshold aside for entities falling within the scope of the Union acts referred to in Parts I.B and II of the Annex to that Directive, which cover financial services, anti-money laundering and transport safety among others. Paragraph 7 allows a Member State, after a risk assessment, to require smaller entities as well, and paragraph 9 imposes the requirement on all legal entities in the public sector, with an optional exemption a Member State may make for municipalities with fewer than ten thousand inhabitants or fewer than fifty workers, and for other public entities with fewer than fifty workers. Below fifty workers the question is therefore which sector you are in and what your Member State has decided, not whether you clear the threshold. If you are genuinely outside each of those cases the channel need not exist, and even then the person reporting has somewhere to go: Article 10 of that Directive gives them an external route to the competent authority without having to report internally first, and Article 15 permits public disclosure under conditions. And the protection is not a formality, but it is not enforced through this Regulation: Article 19 of the Directive prohibits retaliation and Article 21 sets out the protective measures, and enforcement runs through national whistleblower law, in the Netherlands through the Huis voor Klokkenluiders and the civil courts. Article 99 of this Regulation does not list Article 87 among the fineable infringements; there is therefore no AI Act fine for disadvantaging a person who reported. Note too that the report here does not depend on a decision or on harm, whereas the right to an explanation in Article 86 does.","source_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:dir-eu-2019-1937","source_locator":"Directive (EU) 2019/1937, Article 9(1), Article 16 and Article 18","source_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj"},{"kind":"recommended_action","statement":"First determine whether Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and national transposition law apply to you at all: below fifty workers there is in principle no channel requirement, in which case this object is not a set-up question for you. If you are covered, check whether your existing reporting channel recognises a report about an AI system and whether whoever receives it knows the AI Regulation may be engaged. Record per report what was reported, about which system, what was done with it and when feedback was given, and measure that against the deadlines in Article 9(1) of that Directive: acknowledgement of receipt within seven days under point (b), feedback within three months under point (f). Keep the identity of the person reporting out of what goes to line managers (Article 16), retain no longer than necessary and proportionate (Article 18(1)), and record an oral report only with consent (Article 18(2) to (4)). Also decide whether you will handle anonymous reports: Article 6(2) leaves that choice to the Member State, so check what your national law says. Finally, put to your lawyer the question whether your national whistleblower act already covers AI Act infringements, because such an act usually ties its scope to the Annex to the Directive and Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 is not listed there.","source_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:reg-eu-2024-1689","source_locator":"Article 87","source_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj"},{"kind":"recommended_action","statement":"First determine whether Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and national transposition law apply to you at all: below fifty workers there is in principle no channel requirement, in which case this object is not a set-up question for you. If you are covered, check whether your existing reporting channel recognises a report about an AI system and whether whoever receives it knows the AI Regulation may be engaged. Record per report what was reported, about which system, what was done with it and when feedback was given, and measure that against the deadlines in Article 9(1) of that Directive: acknowledgement of receipt within seven days under point (b), feedback within three months under point (f). Keep the identity of the person reporting out of what goes to line managers (Article 16), retain no longer than necessary and proportionate (Article 18(1)), and record an oral report only with consent (Article 18(2) to (4)). Also decide whether you will handle anonymous reports: Article 6(2) leaves that choice to the Member State, so check what your national law says. Finally, put to your lawyer the question whether your national whistleblower act already covers AI Act infringements, because such an act usually ties its scope to the Annex to the Directive and Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 is not listed there.","source_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:dir-eu-2019-1937","source_locator":"Directive (EU) 2019/1937, Article 8(1), (3), (4), (7) and (9)","source_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj"},{"kind":"recommended_action","statement":"First determine whether Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and national transposition law apply to you at all: below fifty workers there is in principle no channel requirement, in which case this object is not a set-up question for you. If you are covered, check whether your existing reporting channel recognises a report about an AI system and whether whoever receives it knows the AI Regulation may be engaged. Record per report what was reported, about which system, what was done with it and when feedback was given, and measure that against the deadlines in Article 9(1) of that Directive: acknowledgement of receipt within seven days under point (b), feedback within three months under point (f). Keep the identity of the person reporting out of what goes to line managers (Article 16), retain no longer than necessary and proportionate (Article 18(1)), and record an oral report only with consent (Article 18(2) to (4)). Also decide whether you will handle anonymous reports: Article 6(2) leaves that choice to the Member State, so check what your national law says. Finally, put to your lawyer the question whether your national whistleblower act already covers AI Act infringements, because such an act usually ties its scope to the Annex to the Directive and Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 is not listed there.","source_id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:dir-eu-2019-1937","source_locator":"Directive (EU) 2019/1937, Article 9(1), Article 16 and Article 18","source_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj"}]}],"conditional":[],"sources":[{"id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:reg-eu-2024-1689","title":"EU Artificial Intelligence Act 2024/1689","publisher":"European Parliament and Council","canonical_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj","source_version":"original-oj-2024-07-12","verified_at":"2026-08-08T00:00:00.000Z"},{"id":"praxikon:eu:ai-act:source:dir-eu-2019-1937","title":"Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law","publisher":"European Parliament and Council","canonical_url":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj","eli":"http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj","source_version":"original-oj-2019-11-26","verified_at":"2026-09-06T00:00:00.000Z"}],"first_actions":[{"label":"Make sure a report about an AI system reaches your reporting channel","summary":"Only for organisations that must already have a reporting arrangement. Make visible in it that an infringement of the AI Regulation is a reportable infringement, designate who receives such a report, agree how the identity of the person reporting stays out of the rest of the process, and record whether you handle anonymous reports."}],"evidence":[{"label":"File of reports about AI systems","summary":"Per report: what was reported, about which system and which version, what was done with it, when feedback was given and who handled it. The deadlines against which that is measured sit in Article 9(1) of Directive (EU) 2019/1937: acknowledgement of receipt within seven days (point (b)) and feedback within three months (point (f)). This file has limits that are as hard as the record keeping itself: the identity of the person reporting stays shielded and does not travel with the substantive follow-up (Article 16), nothing is retained longer than necessary and proportionate (Article 18(1)), and an oral report is recorded only with the consent of the person reporting (Article 18(2) to (4)). Without those limits the file is itself a risk, including under the GDPR.","url":null}],"guidance":[],"examples":[],"standards":[],"definitions":[],"answer_page":"https://www.praxikon.com/en/antwoord/artikel-87-ai-act","follow_up_questions":[],"disclaimer":"General interpretation, not legal advice. The official source remains authoritative.","methodology":"https://www.praxikon.com/en/methodologie"}