diff --git a/src/caosadvancedtools/models/data_model.py b/src/caosadvancedtools/models/data_model.py
index fc82a9370e50353624d9d8f9069502c54257fff6..e198d15ca2c56eceec29c356cabdf28ac44895b2 100644
--- a/src/caosadvancedtools/models/data_model.py
+++ b/src/caosadvancedtools/models/data_model.py
@@ -23,6 +23,11 @@
 # ** end header
 #
 from copy import deepcopy
+# TODO(fspreck) for backwards compatibility with Python < 3.9 but this is
+# actually
+# [deprecated](https://docs.python.org/3/library/typing.html#typing.List), so
+# remove this, when we drop support for old Python versions.
+from typing import List
 
 import caosdb as db
 from caosdb.apiutils import compare_entities, describe_diff