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Workplace and education emotion recognition

An AI system infers emotions in the workplace or an education institution, outside the narrow medical or safety exceptions.

  • high
  • prohibited-practice
  • emotion-recognition
  • eu-ai-act

How it happens

A system analyses facial expression, tone of voice, or physiological signals to infer an employee's or student's emotional state, for a purpose like productivity monitoring or engagement scoring that falls outside the medical or safety exceptions.

Why it matters

Emotion recognition in these specific settings carries a structural power imbalance, an employee or student can't meaningfully opt out, which is why the prohibition doesn't require proof of harm in a specific case, only the practice itself.

Mitigating controls

The controls that address this risk, ranked by effectiveness.

No controls mapped to this risk yet.

Framework and clause references

FrameworkClauseTitle
EU AI ActArticle 5(f)Emotion recognition in workplace and education

Related resources

The external sources behind this risk, from the Resources library.