EU AI Act Article 26(6) — Deployer duty to keep the logs automatically generated by the high-risk AI system
Deployers must retain the logs a high-risk AI system generates automatically, where those logs are under their control, for a period appropriate to the intended purpose and at least six months
Where this comes from
Provision: Article 26(6) — Deployer duty to keep the logs automatically generated by the high-risk AI system
Instrument: EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689)
Citation: Article 26(6), Regulation (EU) 2024/1689
Text version: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), OJ L, 12.7.2024
Checked against the source: 2 September 2026
Who it applies to
High-risk AI deployer in scope — all of these:
- Service deploys AI systems in a professional capacity
- AI Act role is Deployer or we provide some AI systems and deploy others
Annex III high-risk area (Art. 6(2)) — any one of these:
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Biometrics
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Critical infrastructure
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Education and vocational training
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Employment and worker management
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Essential public services
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Creditworthiness
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Insurance
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Law enforcement
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Migration, asylum and border control
- Annex III high-risk areas includes Administration of justice and democratic processes
…unless:
- AI Act scope exclusion is used exclusively for military, defence or national-security purposes or developed and used solely for scientific research and development
- Art. 2(3): the Regulation 'does not apply to AI systems where and in so far as they are placed on the market, put into service, or used with or without modification exclusively for military, defence or national security purposes'. (AI Act Art. 2(3))
- Art. 2(6): the Regulation 'does not apply to AI systems or AI models, including their output, specifically developed and put into service for the sole purpose of scientific research and development'. (AI Act Art. 2(6))
- Art. 6(3): an Annex III system is NOT high-risk where it does not pose a significant risk of harm to health, safety or fundamental rights, including by not materially influencing the outcome of decision making — which applies where the system (a) performs... (AI Act Art. 6(3))
- Art. 26(6) reaches logs only 'to the extent such logs are under their control', and the six-month floor yields 'unless provided otherwise in applicable Union or national law, in particular in Union law on the protection of personal data'. (AI Act Art. 26(6))
Scope in the source's own terms
- Art. 2(1): the AI system is placed on the market or put into service in the Union, or the provider/deployer is established in the Union, or the output produced by the system is used in the Union
- Art. 6(2): the AI system falls within an area listed in Annex III and is therefore high-risk, no documented Art. 6(3) derogation applying (and it is ALWAYS high-risk where it performs profiling of natural persons)
- Art. 26(1), read with Art. 3(4): the actor is a 'deployer' — a natural or legal person using an AI system under its authority, other than in the course of a personal non-professional activity
- Art. 26(6): the duty reaches the logs automatically generated by the system 'to the extent such logs are under their control' — retention of at least six months unless Union or national law provides otherwise
What engineering work it implies
- AI Decision Logging (Append-Only Decision Record)Covers it fully
Append-only, tamper-evident log of every AI-assisted decision: model and version, hashed inputs, output, confidence, human-override flag, and an enforced retention floor.
Sample acceptance criteria Landfall generates for this obligation:
- Each recordable event is written at the time it occurs, on the request path, not batched later
- A record identifies what happened, when (ISO 8601), which system/version produced it, and who or what acted
- Records are append-only and tamper-evident (chained or write-once); an edit or deletion is detectable
- A retention floor and ceiling are set per record type and enforced by a scheduled job
- Records carry hashes or references instead of copies of the underlying personal data
Evidence an auditor expects
- Technical controlTechnical auditRetain at least 6 months (Art. 26(6)); longer where the intended purpose or sectoral law requires
Log retention configuration proving the Art. 26(6) minimum period
Storage and retention configuration evidencing that automatically generated logs under the deployer's control are kept for a period appropriate to the intended purpose and in any event AT LEAST SIX MONTHS, unless Union or national law — in particular data-protection law — provides otherwise
- Process recordDocument review
Retention-period justification reconciling Art. 26(6) with GDPR storage limitation
Written justification for the retention period chosen, recording the intended purpose, any sectoral requirement (for financial institutions, the Union financial services law documentation regime named in Art. 26(6)), and the GDPR Art. 5(1)(e) analysis where the logs contain personal data
Questions people ask
- Does EU AI Act Article 26(6) — Deployer duty to keep the logs automatically genera… apply to my service?
- It applies when Service deploys AI systems in a professional capacity; AI Act role is Deployer or we provide some AI systems and deploy others; and at least one of: Annex III high-risk areas includes Biometrics; Annex III high-risk areas includes Critical infrastructure; Annex III high-risk areas includes Education and vocational training; Annex III high-risk areas includes Employment and worker management; Annex III high-risk areas includes Essential public services; Annex III high-risk areas includes Creditworthiness; Annex III high-risk areas includes Insurance; Annex III high-risk areas includes Law enforcement; Annex III high-risk areas includes Migration, asylum and border control; Annex III high-risk areas includes Administration of justice and democratic processes. It does not apply where AI Act scope exclusion is used exclusively for military, defence or national-security purposes or developed and used solely for scientific research and development.
- When does this become enforceable?
- EU AI Act Article 26(6) — Deployer duty to keep the logs automatically genera… is enforceable from 2 August 2026. Its current status is: in force.
- What evidence does an auditor expect?
- Log retention configuration proving the Art. 26(6) minimum period; Retention-period justification reconciling Art. 26(6) with GDPR storage limitation.
Find out whether this one lands on you
Landfall's pre-scan answers the applicability question above for your product in minutes, then turns every obligation that applies into traceable engineering tickets with a citation chain your auditors can follow.
Not legal advice. Landfall maps regulatory obligations to engineering work for planning purposes. Its verdicts are not legal advice and create no attorney-client relationship — verify with qualified counsel before relying on them.