Emotion Recognition and Personalized Adverting

This article examines emotion recognition systems (‘ERS’) and their use in the field of personalized advertising, adopting the perspective of EU law. The identification of an individual’s emotions through the use of ERS is a form of profiling based on the analysis of data relating to human biological characteristics, from which personal, even sensitive, information can be extracted. Such processing calls into question the concept of identification established by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), particularly when techniques are adopted that appear far removed from those in use in biometric identification technologies. The full range of provisions and principles set out in the GDPR for automated processing, including the principles of transparency, accuracy and fairness, apply to emotion recognition. The analysis also addresses commercial practices involving the use of ERS from the perspective of Directive 2005/29/EC and the online advertising provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA). Lastly, the article discusses ERS regulation within the IA Act and its interaction with the data protection framework.