When AI Turns Emotion into Data: The Gaps in EU Law.

This article critically examines the EU AI Act's attempt to regulate AI-based emotion recognition systems, a key development in the realm of emotional data and mental privacy protection. While the AI Act includes provisions specifically addressing emotion recognition, it falls short of providing meaningful safeguards. The AI Act not only offers limited protection against certain types of emotion recognition systems but also inadvertently legitimises emotional data use that verges on manipulation. Given the AI Act's failure to adequately protect emotional privacy, this article explores the protective capacity of the GDPR with respect to emotional data. While the GDPR offers some welcome safeguards, it remains insufficient in addressing the unique risks posed by emotion recognition technologies. Against this backdrop, the article advocates for a novel legal approach: a complete prohibition of emotion recognition systems for non-medical purposes, alongside a nuanced taxonomy regulating their use in medical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]