Cohere · Cohere Terms of Use

Prohibition on Reverse Engineering

Medium severity
Share 𝕏 Share in Share 🔒 PDF

What it is

You are not allowed to reverse engineer, copy, or create derivative works based on Cohere's AI models or services, and you cannot help others do so either.

Consumer impact (what this means for users)

Enterprise customers cannot inspect or audit the internal workings of Cohere's AI models under these Terms, which creates challenges for AI governance, bias auditing, and regulatory compliance in sectors requiring algorithmic transparency.

Cross-platform context

See how other platforms handle Prohibition on Reverse Engineering and similar clauses.

Compare across platforms →
Need full compliance memos? See Professional →

Why it matters (compliance & risk perspective)

This clause prevents users from understanding how Cohere's AI models work internally, which limits transparency and the ability to audit AI systems for bias or accuracy — a growing concern in regulated AI deployments.

View original clause language
You agree not to (and not to allow any third party to): (i) decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, attempt to derive the source code of, or decrypt the Services; (ii) make any modification, adaptation, improvement, enhancement, translation or derivative work from the Services; (iii) violate any applicable laws or regulations in connection with your access or use of the Services.

Institutional analysis (Compliance & legal intelligence)

(1) REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: Reverse engineering prohibitions engage the EU AI Act Art. 13 (transparency obligations for high-risk AI systems) and Art. 12 (logging requirements), which may require deployers to have sufficient insight into AI system operation to fulfill their own compliance obligations. The DMCA (17 USC §1201) in the US provides limited reverse engineering exemptions for interoperability and security research. The EU's Cyber Resilience Act may further limit such prohibitions for security research purposes. (2)

🔒

Compliance intelligence locked

Regulatory citations, enforcement risk, and due diligence action items.

Watcher $9.99/mo Professional $149/mo

Watcher: regulatory citations. Professional: full compliance memo.

Provision details

Document information
Document
Cohere Terms of Use
Entity
Cohere
Document last updated
April 29, 2026
Tracking information
First tracked
April 30, 2026
Last verified
April 30, 2026
Record ID
CA-P-004191
Document ID
CA-D-00441
Evidence Provenance
Source URL
Wayback Machine
SHA-256
fce6a3fe9260708841b139a17617c1f2c9485f652de86766eaaf928e6f5e0872
Verified
✓ Snapshot stored   ✓ Change verified
How to Cite
ConductAtlas Policy Archive
Entity: Cohere | Document: Cohere Terms of Use | Record: CA-P-004191
Captured: 2026-04-30 06:55:06 UTC | SHA-256: fce6a3fe92607088…
URL: https://conductatlas.com/platform/cohere/cohere-terms-of-use/prohibition-on-reverse-engineering/
Accessed: May 2, 2026
Classification
Severity
Medium
Categories

Other provisions in this document