NIS2 incident reporting and AI suppliers: 24 hours, 72 hours, one month
Short answer
The Dutch Cybersecurity Act, the national implementation of NIS2, applies since 15 August 2026; Germany’s law since December 2025. Essential and important entities report a significant incident within 24 hours, deliver an update within 72 hours and a final report within a month. An AI service is part of your chain: an outage or breach at the supplier can trigger your duty to report. So notification deadlines, sub-processors and an exit belong in every AI supplier contract.
Reporting in three steps
| Deadline | What you report | To whom |
|---|---|---|
| Within 24 hours | Early warning: that there is a significant incident, and whether malicious intent or cross-border impact is suspected | The national CSIRT (in the Netherlands the NCSC) |
| Within 72 hours | Incident notification: a first assessment of severity, impact and indicators | The CSIRT and the sector supervisor |
| Within one month | Final report: cause, measures taken and impact, including cross-border | The CSIRT and the sector supervisor |
In the Netherlands the law covers over eight thousand organisations in sectors such as energy, healthcare, transport, digital infrastructure, government and manufacturing; registration with the NCSC is mandatory. See NIS2 and AI for the duty of care and the role of the board; this article is about reporting and the chain.
When an AI incident is reportable
An incident is significant when it seriously disrupts services, causes financial loss or considerably affects others. With AI in the chain, these are the scenarios:
- A breach through an AI service. A staff member pastes customer data into a public tool, or the supplier of your AI service is hacked. Besides the GDPR notification within 72 hours, this can be a NIS2 report if it affects your services.
- Prompt injection with consequences. A document or email with hidden instructions makes an AI automation send or change data.
- Supplier outage. An AI service a primary process depends on is down for hours. Depending on the sector, that is a disruption of services.
- Model manipulation. A model or its sources are changed unnoticed so that answers are no longer right.
See Step-by-step plan for a data breach with AI for the first hours.
AI suppliers in the chain
The duty of care requires you to manage supplier risks. For an AI supplier that means at least:
- The supplier’s notification deadline. Shorter than your own 24 hours, because you still have to assess. In practice: immediately on discovery, within a few hours at most.
- Sub-processors and locations. Which parties sit behind the service, and where? Every link is an extra risk and an extra reporting chain.
- Logging and evidence. Can you see at an incident what the AI service did? Without an audit log a final report within a month cannot be written.
- Continuity. What happens if the service drops out, and how fast can you switch?
- Exit. Data, configuration and logs back in open formats.
See Assessing an AI supplier for the question list.
Why a short chain wins
Every external AI service adds a party you must assess, contract, monitor and question at an incident. An AI environment that belongs to your organisation, on your own hardware or on a dedicated node, shortens that chain to one link: yourself, or yourself and one operator under a contract you wrote. The model is a file you own, the logs are with you, and the question “what did the supplier see” has a short answer.
How werqly fits in
With werqly the node stands in your server room or as a dedicated node in a Dutch datacentre, without sub-processors outside the EU and without a model provider in the chain. The audit log of werqly AI Control is the evidence for the incident report, and with werqly Pro management the notification deadlines are in the contract.
Frequently asked questions
Questions on this topic
What are the NIS2 reporting deadlines?
An early warning within 24 hours of discovery, an incident notification within 72 hours and a final report within a month. In the Netherlands reports go to the NCSC; in Germany to the BSI.
Is a breach through ChatGPT a NIS2 incident?
It is a data breach under the GDPR in any case. It also becomes a NIS2 incident if it significantly disrupts your services or considerably affects others. Assess both frameworks separately and report where needed in both places.
What belongs in the contract with an AI supplier?
A notification deadline shorter than your own 24 hours, a list of sub-processors and locations, access to logging, continuity arrangements and an exit with data in open formats.
Does my organisation fall under NIS2?
That depends on sector and size. The Dutch NCTV offers a self-assessment and a questions page; registration with the NCSC is mandatory for those in scope.
Sources
This article is general information, not legal advice. Rules and guidance change; check the sources listed or ask your lawyer or DPO if in doubt.