Guides · Article 50 · EU AI Act
Emotion recognition & the EU AI Act
If you deploy AI that infers emotion or categorises people from biometric data, Article 50(3) of the EU AI Act applies a transparency duty. This guide summarizes it from the regulation text. Informational only — not legal advice.
What Article 50(3) requires
The regulation text provides that deployers of an emotion recognition system or a biometric categorisation system must inform the natural persons exposed to it of the operation of the system, and must process the personal data in accordance with Regulations (EU) 2016/679 and (EU) 2018/1725 and Directive (EU) 2016/680, as applicable (Article 50(3), Regulation (EU) 2024/1689).
So this paragraph ties the transparency duty directly to existing EU data-protection law — it should be coordinated with your data-protection documentation, not handled in isolation.
The carve-out
The obligation does not apply to systems used for biometric categorisation and emotion recognition that are permitted by law for certain law-enforcement purposes, subject to safeguards and Union law. Whether your system is an 'emotion recognition system' as defined in the Regulation is a fact-specific question.
See what may apply to your business
Answer seven quick questions for an automated, informational indication of which Article 50 obligations appear likely to apply — free, and not legal advice.