Complaints and regulators

The practical judgement

You can complain about a suspected AI Act infringement, but first identify which authority covers the system. There is no universal EU portal, and national machinery remains incomplete.

Under Article 85, any person or organisation with grounds to think the Act was infringed may complain to the relevant market-surveillance authority without being directly affected. This national-procedure complaint route applies from 2 August 2026. That authority must take the complaint into account and handle it under its dedicated procedures, but the supplied evidence does not identify who enforces that handling duty.¹

The AI Act does not set an EU-wide response deadline or require a decision on the merits, progress reports or a personal remedy. Article 74 gives national market-surveillance authorities investigative and corrective powers over provisions already applicable from 2 August 2026, but Article 85 leaves complaint handling to national procedures.¹

Article 70 required Member States to designate market-surveillance authorities and a single contact point, publishing electronic contact details by 2 August 2025. The Commission can pursue infringement proceedings for a failure to designate.² Its 7 September 2026 list showed only nine final contact points. Twelve were pending; Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia had none listed. The route was provisional or blank in eighteen Member States.²

Under Articles 75 and 85 the AI Office handles qualifying complaints within its enforcement remit from 2 August 2026.³ That remit mainly covers certain systems tied to a general-purpose model from the same undertaking and systems in very large online platforms or search engines. Many financial, policing and border systems remain with national authorities.¹

Under Article 77, a data-protection authority must report progress and outcome, and Article 78 permits court action if it does not handle the complaint or provide an update within three months. Courts enforce those authority duties, which have applied since 25 May 2018.⁴

Boundary. An Article 85 complaint is information for market surveillance, not a guaranteed personal appeal. It does not promise compensation, reversal or even a merits decision. National complaint forms, response standards and penalty laws were not mapped across all Member States; penalty rules are national. Contact points were shown as pending or were not listed on the Commission’s 7 September 2026 list.