Get the weekly research letter
Companies change their terms quietly. We read every version and catch what actually changed. One email a week on the changes that matter and what they mean. No account.
The policy prohibits using Cohere services for unlawful location tracking, social scoring, real-time biometric identification, emotion inference from biometric data, inference of protected characteristics such as race or political opinions from biometric data, or other unauthorized access to personal information.
This analysis describes what Cohere's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision specifically enumerates real-time biometric identification and emotion inference from biometric data as prohibited uses, both of which are classified as prohibited or high-risk practices under the EU AI Act. The reference to 'applicable privacy regulations' incorporates compliance obligations under GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable privacy frameworks by reference.
Interpretive note: The scope of prohibited activities under this provision depends on 'applicable privacy regulations,' which vary significantly by jurisdiction and require independent legal assessment for each deployment context.
The updated policy removes all substantive acceptable use requirements that were previously posted and enforceable. Users no longer have a referenced standard defining what conduct is prohibited on the platform. The removal of enforcement procedures means users cannot verify what conduct may trigger access restriction, suspension, or termination. The elimination of the child safety and sexually explicit content prohibitions from the posted policy creates uncertainty about whether these protections remain in effect through other terms or have been abandoned.
View change record →Under this clause, Cohere services may not be used to infer emotions, race, political opinions, or other protected characteristics from biometric data, or to conduct real-time identification of individuals. The prohibition on social scoring covers automated systems that assign scores to individuals based on their behavior or characteristics.
Cross-platform context
See how other platforms handle Compromising Privacy or Identity Prohibition and similar clauses.
Compare across platforms →Monitoring
Cohere has changed this document before.
Receive same-day alerts, structured change summaries, and monitoring for up to 25 platforms.
"Compromising Privacy or Identity. Violation of a person's privacy rights or applicable privacy regulations, including unlawful access to or tracking of a person's physical location; unlawful social scoring; real-time identification of a person or inference of emotions or protected characteristics of a person such as race or political opinions based on biometric data (including facial recognition); or other unauthorized access to personal information.Excerpt from Cohere's Usage Policy
1) REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: The prohibition on real-time biometric identification and emotion inference from biometric data directly engages the EU AI Act's list of prohibited AI practices, which includes real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces and AI systems that infer emotions or political opinions from biometric data. GDPR Articles on special categories of personal data require explicit consent or another legal basis for biometric data processing. CCPA/CPRA classifies biometric data as sensitive personal information with specific opt-out rights. The FTC has signaled enforcement interest in emotion recognition and biometric inference technologies. 2) GOVERNANCE EXPOSURE: High. The specific enumeration of emotion inference and protected characteristic inference from biometric data reflects practices that are subject to active regulatory prohibition in the EU and increasing scrutiny in the US. The reference to 'applicable privacy regulations' means that the scope of this prohibition expands to incorporate all privacy obligations applicable to a given user's jurisdiction. 3) JURISDICTION FLAGS: EU and EEA deployments face the highest exposure, as emotion recognition and real-time biometric identification from public-space data are explicitly prohibited under the EU AI Act for most use cases. Illinois BIPA applies to biometric identifiers and information collected from Illinois residents. The policy's reference to social scoring may engage specific provisions in jurisdictions that have enacted or proposed social credit restrictions. 4) CONTRACT AND VENDOR IMPLICATIONS: Developers building applications involving any biometric data processing should assess whether their intended use case falls within the prohibited categories enumerated in this provision. The policy's incorporation of 'applicable privacy regulations' by reference means that compliance obligations vary by jurisdiction and require independent legal assessment. 5) COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS: Compliance teams should inventory any Cohere deployment use cases that involve biometric data inputs, including facial images, voice data, or other biometric identifiers, and assess whether the intended outputs would constitute real-time identification, emotion inference, or protected characteristic inference under applicable law. Data protection impact assessments may be required for biometric data processing in EU jurisdictions.
Full institutional analysis
Regulatory citations, enforcement risk, and due diligence action items.
Monitor: same-day alerts on the platforms you choose. Analyst: full institutional analysis.
Compliance Governance Intelligence
Need to monitor specific governance provisions?
Compliance includes provision-level monitoring, governance timelines, regulatory mapping, and audit-ready analysis.
Built from archived source documents, structured governance mappings, and historical version tracking.
This provision specifically enumerates real-time biometric identification and emotion inference from biometric data as prohibited uses, both of which are classified as prohibited or high-risk practices under the EU AI Act. The reference to 'applicable privacy regulations' incorporates compliance obligations under GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable privacy frameworks by reference.
Under this clause, Cohere services may not be used to infer emotions, race, political opinions, or other protected characteristics from biometric data, or to conduct real-time identification of individuals. The prohibition on social scoring covers automated systems that assign scores to individuals based on their behavior or characteristics.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Cohere.