Skill: EU AI Act Compliance Red Team
Supplementary Files:
payloads.md— Article 9 testing commands, Annex IV documentation generators, conformity assessment scripts, Notified Body audit prep checktest-cases.md— 5 structured test cases covering LLM red team, deepfake classification, bias testing, transparency docs, and robustness adversarialguides/eu-ai-act-article-9-deep-dive.md— Article 9 clause-by-clause analysis with test mapping
Summary
EU AI Act compliance-focused red team skill domain. Validating that high-risk AI systems satisfy Article 9 (data governance, adversarial robustness, logging, transparency, human oversight) and Annex IV (technical documentation) requirements, with conformity assessment evidence and Notified Body audit preparation.
Domain: ai-compliance | Regulation: EU Regulation 2024/1689 | Enforcement: since 2026-08-02
Description
The EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) is the world's first comprehensive legal framework for artificial intelligence. After a phased implementation beginning February 2025, the high-risk AI system obligations under Articles 8–15 entered enforceable status on 2 August 2026. National competent authorities (the AI Office plus each Member State's regulator) may now initiate audits, demand technical documentation, and impose penalties.
The maximum penalty: €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher. For mid-cap enterprises the threshold drops to €15M / 3%, but for systemic-risk general-purpose AI models the maximum still applies.
Article 9 specifically mandates that providers of high-risk AI systems conduct adversarial testing (red teaming) to identify and mitigate known and reasonably foreseeable vulnerabilities. This is distinct from technical AI red teaming (covered in ai-safety-redteam-advanced) — Article 9 testing must be documented in Annex IV technical files, with risk treatment decisions, residual risk acceptance, and retest schedules.
This skill covers the compliance perspective: how to map a high-risk AI system to Annex III categories, run red-team tests that satisfy Article 9 acceptance criteria, generate Annex IV technical documentation artifacts, prepare for conformity assessment, and survive a Notified Body audit.
Skill Identity
| Aspect | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Compliance testing + documentation generation |
| Distinguishing feature | Regulatory lens applied to technical red team work |
| Adjacent skills | ai-safety-redteam-advanced (technical), ai-security (model/app security), llm-red-team (LLM-specific) |
| Distinct from adjacent | This skill produces compliance evidence; adjacent skills produce vulnerability findings |
Why this skill exists
Three converging trends made this skill necessary in 2026:
- Enforcement began 2026-08-02. Annex III high-risk systems (biometrics, critical infrastructure, education, employment, essential services, law enforcement, migration, justice, democratic processes) must comply. Companies that did not prepare Article 9 evidence in 2025-2026 are now exposed to fines.
- Annex IV technical documentation is the audit deliverable. Most technical red team tools (Garak, Counterfit, TextAttack) produce findings; Annex IV requires evidence-attached, traceable, retested-on-schedule findings. There is a documentation gap.
- Notified Body audits in late 2026 will be the first wave. Companies facing audit need a structured way to organize the artifacts they have (or generate what's missing).
Differentiation from ai-safety-redteam-advanced
| Dimension | ai-safety-redteam-advanced | This skill |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Find technical vulnerabilities | Produce regulatory compliance evidence |
| Output | Vulnerability report, CVSS scores, PoCs | Annex IV technical file, risk register, audit trail |
| Audience | Security engineers, CISO | Notified Body auditor, AI Office regulator, compliance team |
| Tools | OWASP LLM Top 10, jailbreaks, prompt injection | Article 9 test matrix, Annex IV template, conformity checklists |
| Test cadence | Continuous / on-demand | Per-release + per-change + per-retest-window |
Both skills use overlapping tools (Garak, Counterfit, TextAttack) but produce different artifacts for different audiences.
Use Cases
- Pre-audit readiness assessment for an enterprise deploying a high-risk LLM (e.g., HR resume screening) — generate the Article 9 evidence trail and identify gaps before a Notified Body arrives
- Annex III high-risk classification — determine if a new AI feature (e.g., AI-driven loan approval) falls under Annex III scope and which Article 9 sub-clauses apply
- Adversarial robustness testing (Article 15) — run documented red team suites against an in-production model, capturing inputs/outputs/metrics for the technical file
- Data governance audit (Article 10) — verify training data provenance, bias mitigation, andDatasheet generation completeness
- Transparency documentation (Article 13) — generate user-facing notices, instructions for use, and confidence-score disclosures for deployers
- Human oversight effectiveness (Article 14) — test that human reviewers can override AI outputs and detect when the AI is wrong; log override rates and decision quality
- Logging completeness (Article 12 / Annex IV §2(f)) — verify automatic event logging captures training runs, validation tests, post-market monitoring events
- Conformity assessment preparation — assemble Annex IV technical documentation (system architecture, model card, training data summary, test results, risk register)
- Post-market monitoring (Article 72) — establish the loop: production telemetry → anomaly detection → re-test → update risk register → file revision
- Cross-border deployment check — verify that a model trained and approved in one Member State is acceptable for deployment in another (mutual recognition under Article 60)
Core Tools
| Tool | Category | Purpose | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garak (NVIDIA) | LLM vulnerability scanner | Probe LLMs for OWASP LLM Top 10 + EU AI Act Article 15 robustness; CSV/JSON output for Annex IV | Apache 2.0 |
| Microsoft Counterfit | AI red-team orchestration | Run adversarial suites against ML models (vision, NLP, tabular); task-level evidence collection | MIT |
| TextAttack | NLP adversarial | Generate and run adversarial text perturbations for robustness testing | MIT |
| Audit-ML | Model decision audit | Log feature attribution + outcome explanation; supports Article 13 transparency | Apache 2.0 |
| Aequitas / Fairlearn | Bias auditing | Quantify demographic disparity in model outcomes; supports Article 10 data governance | MIT / MIT |
| Model Card Toolkit (Google) | Documentation generation | Generate Model Cards (Mitchell et al. 2019) that map to Annex IV §2(c) | Apache 2.0 |
| Datasheets for Datasets templates | Documentation generation | Fill Gebru et al. 2018 datasheet template → Annex IV §2(a) | CC-BY |
| NIST AI RMF (framework) | Risk management alignment | Map EU AI Act evidence to NIST AI RMF Govern/Map/Measure/Manage for cross-jurisdiction | Public domain |
Methodology
Phase 1: Classification & Scope
Determine whether the AI system falls under EU AI Act high-risk (Annex III) or is otherwise regulated (e.g., GPAI with systemic risk under Article 51).
bash# Decision-tree prompt python3 skills/eu-ai-act-compliance-redteam/scripts/classify.py \ --system-description "LLM screening resumes for senior engineer role" \ --output scope.json # Outputs: { "annex_iii_clause": "IV(a)", "high_risk": true, "obligations": ["Art.9","Art.10","Art.13","Art.14","Art.15"] }
Phase 2: Risk Assessment & Test Plan
Using NIST AI RMF + EU AI Act Article 9, build a risk register and corresponding test plan. Each risk maps to one or more Article 9 sub-clauses.
python# Risk register entry risk = { "id": "R-AI-2026-001", "description": "Model fails on non-English EU official language resumes", "article_9_clause": "Art.9(2)(b) — error-free performance across population groups", "severity": "high", "test_suite": "multilingual_resume_eval", "mitigation": "fine-tune on Spanish/Polish/German HR data; add pre-deployment language coverage test", "residual_risk_acceptance": "low — CEO signoff required", "retest_cadence": "quarterly" }
Phase 3: Adversarial Testing Execution
Run the test plan using Garak, Counterfit, TextAttack, Aequitas. Capture:
- Input + expected output + actual output + metric (passed/failed)
- Reproducibility (model commit hash, random seed, environment)
- Time-stamped logs (for Article 12 / Annex IV §2(f))
Phase 4: Documentation Generation
Generate Annex IV technical file, Model Card, Datasheet, and risk register. Each artifact cross-references the test evidence captured in Phase 3.
bash# Generate Annex IV technical file (Markdown + JSON) python3 skills/eu-ai-act-compliance-redteam/scripts/annex_iv.py \ --risk-register risks.json \ --test-evidence evidence/ \ --model-card model_card.json \ --datasheet data/datasheet.yaml \ --output annex_iv_technical_file.md
Phase 5: Conformity Assessment & Post-Market
Submit Annex IV file + internal control documentation for conformity assessment (internal control for most Annex III systems, Notified Body for some). Establish post-market monitoring loop (Article 72).
Defense Perspective
| Defense Layer | Control | Key Points |
|---|---|---|
| Classification (Phase 1) | Document Annex III reasoning in scope.json; require legal review for borderline cases | Misclassification is the #1 audit failure mode — every Notified Body will challenge the classification first |
| Risk assessment (Phase 2) | Use both top-down (scenario-based) and bottom-up (component-based) risk ID; cross-walk to NIST AI RMF | Article 9 doesn't prescribe a methodology; choosing a recognized framework (NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 23894) reduces audit pushback |
| Test execution (Phase 3) | Reproducibility: pin model commit, random seeds, dependency versions; store raw outputs alongside processed results | Auditors request re-runs; non-reproducible test = invalid evidence |
| Documentation (Phase 4) | Annex IV file should be machine-readable (JSON) AND human-readable (Markdown); generate both from same source | Auditors use both formats depending on whether they are technical or legal |
| Conformity (Phase 5) | Internal-control conformity (Annex III default) needs 4 documents: technical file, quality management system, EU declaration of conformity, CE mark registration; Notified Body conformity (Article 6(3)) needs 7 documents | Don't conflate the two conformity paths — the documentation burden differs |
| Post-market (Art. 72) | Logging requirements under Article 12 + Annex IV §2(f) require automatic capture of training runs, post-deployment events, and serious incidents; serious incidents must be reported to the AI Office within 15 days (Article 73) | Logging must be designed, not bolted on; retrofit is painful |
| Penalty mitigation | Maintain evidence that provider exercised "due diligence" — Article 9 evidence + corrective action on past findings = strongest mitigation argument | The AI Office has discretion; documented good faith is the strongest defense |
Detection Methods
Detection of non-compliance with the EU AI Act — the regulator's perspective.
Regulator Detection (What auditors look for)
- Absence of risk register — first thing an auditor asks for; missing = immediate red flag
- Test evidence older than 12 months — Article 9 implies currency; stale tests = non-compliance
- Annex IV file without traceability — claims without reproducibility (no commit hash, no seed) = invalid
- Missing serious-incident reports — Article 73 requires reporting within 15 days; auditor checks registry
- Inadequate logging — Article 12 + Annex IV §2(f) define specific event types; missing any = finding
- No post-market monitoring plan — Article 72 requires a documented process; absence = non-compliance
Provider Self-Detection
bash# Compliance self-check python3 skills/eu-ai-act-compliance-redteam/scripts/self_check.py --model my_model # Sigma rule for missing Annex IV artifacts (run in CI) # Detects: PR that trains a model without Annex IV file update title: Model trained without Annex IV update logsource: product: ci detection: selection: event_type: model_train annex_iv_changed: false condition: selection
Defense Evasion Techniques
How a non-compliant provider might evade detection (for awareness, not endorsement):
- Cosmetic Annex IV — generate a technically-complete Annex IV file that makes claims unsupported by actual test evidence; auditors catch this by requesting raw evidence
- Outdated test reports — present last year's tests as current; mitigated by date checks + re-test requests
- "Continuous improvement" misdirection — claim the model is continuously improved so individual version tests don't apply; AI Office guidance (2026-Q1) explicitly rejected this argument
- GPAI classification avoidance — claim a model with 10^25 FLOPs is below the systemic-risk threshold; auditors will demand training records
- Borderline Annex III misclassification — claim a hiring LLM is "assistance" not "filtering" (Annex III IV(a)); regulators have published 12 precedent rulings in 2026-Q2 narrowing this
- Transparency washing — user-facing notices buried in 50-page ToS; Article 50 requires "clear and conspicuous" disclosure
Practical Steps
Detailed payloads in
payloads.md, complete test checklist intest-cases.md.
Step 1: Classify the AI system
Run classify.py (Phase 1) to determine Annex III scope. If borderline, escalate to legal review.
Step 2: Build the risk register
Use the risk_register_template.json; populate top-down (scenarios) and bottom-up (components).
Step 3: Execute the test plan
For LLMs: Garak + TextAttack. For vision: Counterfit. For tabular: Aequitas + Audit-ML.
Step 4: Generate Annex IV
Run annex_iv.py (Phase 4); review the generated Markdown; sign off with risk owner.
Step 5: Submit for conformity assessment
Internal control (default): self-attest with EU declaration of conformity + CE mark. Notified Body (Article 6(3)): engage auditor.
Step 6: Operate post-market monitoring
Establish logging per Article 12; configure serious-incident reporting pipeline (15-day deadline).
Common Pitfalls
- "Check-box" red teaming — running Garak once and calling it Article 9 compliance. Auditors reject this — testing must be per-release and per-change, with documented residual risk acceptance
- Conflating "high-risk" with "important" — only Annex III categories count. An "important" AI for the business that isn't in Annex III is unregulated
- GPAI threshold confusion — the 10^25 FLOPs systemic-risk threshold (Article 51) is different from high-risk (Annex III). A model can be both, neither, or one
- Neglecting logging design — bolting on Article 12 logging after deployment is 10x more expensive than designing it in
- Missing 15-day serious-incident window — Article 73 clock starts when provider becomes aware, not when incident is confirmed. Establish a triage SLA
- Cross-border mutual recognition assumed — Article 60 mutual recognition exists but Member State regulators have challenged it in practice for politically sensitive deployments (e.g., law enforcement)
- Transparency doc as afterthought — Article 13 transparency is a deployer obligation, not just a provider one. Deployers (companies using the AI) are separately liable
Cross-Reference to Related Skills
ai-safety-redteam-advanced— technical AI red team (OWASP LLM Top 10)ai-agent-security— agent framework attacksllm-red-team— LLM-specific attacksai-fuzzing— ML fuzzing toolsci-cd-supply-chain-attack— supply chain compliance overlapsecret-management-attack— credential handling for AI systems
Hacker Laws Alignment
- Law 4 (Verify Everything): Article 9 evidence must be reproducible; trust nothing that isn't traceable to a commit hash
- Law 7 (Documentation is Part of the System): Annex IV is part of the AI system, not an add-on
References
- EU AI Act full text: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689
- Implementation timeline: artificialintelligenceact.eu/implementation-timeline
- European Commission AI policy: digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai
- Article 9 red teaming guide: redteampartner.com/field-notes/eu-ai-act-red-teaming-guide
- A-LIGN enforcement analysis: a-lign.com/articles/eu-ai-act-enforcement-delay
- Garak LLM scanner: github.com/leondz/garak
- Microsoft Counterfit: github.com/Azure/counterfit
- NIST AI RMF: nist.gov/itl/ai-risk-management-framework
- Mitchell et al. 2019 (Model Cards): arxiv.org/abs/1810.03977
- Gebru et al. 2018 (Datasheets): arxiv.org/abs/1803.09010
Attribution
This skill codifies EU AI Act compliance red team practice as of 2026-08. Regulation continues to evolve through EU implementing acts (expected late 2026) and Member State national law. Always verify against the latest EUR-Lex publication before relying on this skill for legal compliance.
