Emotion inference is the act of drawing a conclusion about a person's internal affective state from observable signals. It is distinct from observing the signals themselves, and that distinction carries legal weight.
What it is
Recital 18 of the EU AI Act is explicit that observing readily apparent expressions — a frown, a smile, a gesture — is not emotion inference unless used to infer emotions. Physical states such as pain and fatigue are also excluded.
So the regulated act is the inferential leap, not the observation.
Why it matters
Article 5(1)(f) prohibits emotion inference from biometric data in workplace and education contexts, with fines to €35m or 7% of global turnover. There is no consent exception — it is a prohibition, not a permission with safeguards.
A common confusion
Intermediate values count. A system that computes an emotional state internally and displays only an aggregate has still performed the inference.
Related
See also biometric data, emotion ai and dpia (data protection impact assessment). See the full glossary for the rest, or the EU AI Act guide for the wider context.
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