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Serious incident

By Updated

Under AI Act Article 3(49), an incident or malfunction of an AI system that directly or indirectly leads to (a) a death or serious harm to health, (b) serious and irreversible disruption of critical infrastructure, (c) infringement of Union-law obligations protecting fundamental rights, or (d) serious harm to property or the environment, triggering Article 73 reporting 1.

Developed in
ch. 17, Incident, hazard, issue and serious incident
ch. 18, Post-market monitoring and serious incidents (Articles 72 and 73)
Chapters
ch. 04, The Stack · ch. 08, Regulatory Map · ch. 17, Incidents · ch. 18, EU AI Act
Contrast with
AI incident
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

9 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Patterns that use this term

One pattern page uses the term.

  • AI hazard

    In the OECD's definition, an event or series of events where the development, use or malfunction of an AI system could plausibly lead to an AI incident.

  • Issue (versus incident)

    A defect, deviation or control weakness that has not produced a harmful event, such as an eval regression in staging or a drift alert.

  • Near miss

    A hazard that a control, or luck, interrupted before harm occurred: the guardrail blocked the exfiltration, the reviewer caught the invented dosage.

  • Post-market monitoring

    The AI Act Article 72 duty to actively monitor a high-risk system's performance and risks after deployment, throughout its lifetime.

  • Widespread infringement

    Under AI Act Article 3(61), an act or omission contrary to Union law protecting individuals' interests that harms, or is likely to harm, the collective…

  • AI Act (EU)

    Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the EU's horizontal, risk-tiered law for AI, amended by the Digital Omnibus.

  • AI system

    For governance, the object the AI definition brings into scope.

Sources

  1. [1] Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), consolidated text as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI, in force 27 Jul 2026; definitions in Art. 3, incl. 3(1), 3(3) to 3(14), 3(14b), 3(20), 3(22), 3(23), 3(29) to 3(32), 3(49), 3(55) to 3(57), 3(60), 3(61), 3(63), 3(68); Arts. 4, 5, 6 (incl. 6(3) third subparagraph, profiling), 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22 to 27 (incl. 26(11)), 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 50, 53 (incl. 53(1)(c)), 55, 57, 60, 72, 73, 86; Annexes I, III, IV). Publications Office of the EU (EUR-Lex). 2026-07-27. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/2026-07-27/eng (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Serious incident. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/serious-incident. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026seriousincident,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Serious incident}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/serious-incident}
}