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.