AI in Hiring & HR: High-Risk Under the EU AI Act (Annex III)
AI in the workplace decides who gets hired, promoted, or let go. Annex III point 4 makes almost all of it high risk — one of the most common ways ordinary companies land in scope.
What Annex III(4) covers
- Recruitment and selection (ad targeting, filtering, evaluating candidates)
- Decisions on terms, promotion and termination
- Task allocation based on behaviour or traits
- Monitoring and evaluating performance
Who’s affected
Every employer using AI hiring or workforce tools (deployers, Art. 26) and the HR-tech vendors that build them (providers). This is the single most common route into scope for non-tech companies.
Why it’s high risk
High risk under Annex III(4). Employers must provide human oversight, use the system per instructions, and inform workers and their representatives before deployment. Vendors face the full provider obligation set.
Obligations to prepare for
FAQ
We use an AI CV-screening tool — are we in scope?
Yes. Filtering or ranking applications is expressly high-risk under Annex III(4), and as the employer you're a deployer with Art. 26 duties even though you didn't build the tool.
Is employee monitoring software high-risk?
AI that monitors and evaluates performance, or allocates tasks based on behaviour and personal traits, is high-risk under Annex III(4). Emotion recognition in that monitoring is prohibited outright.
Being high-risk sets the obligations; your role decides who owns them. See provider vs deployer duties · sector detail: Recruitment & Hiring, HR & Workforce.
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