LO
ConstraintCognitive automation2025-07-29
Reading an employee's emotions with AI is banned at work in the EU, but tracking customers' anger is not: the European Commission's guidelines on the AI Act's prohibited practices
First-line manager / team supervisoroccupation page →
Event date / reported
2025-07-29
Evidence stage
ConstraintFailure, rollback, regulation or cost is suppressing adoption. Can lower an assessment or widen its uncertainty.
Tasks this bears on
Seeing it go wrong before the report does
Noticing that a line is slowing, a customer is about to complain, or someone on the team has quietly stopped trying — usually from something that is not in any system.
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
The Commission's guidelines on the AI Act's banned practices, including Article 5(1)(f), which since 2 February 2025 prohibits AI systems that infer the emotions of a person in the workplace except for medical or safety reasons. The guidelines say the workplace spans offices, factories, warehouses and shops; that a call centre using webcams and voice recognition to track its employees' emotions, such as anger, is prohibited; that systems monitoring the emotional tone of hybrid work teams for conflict prevention are prohibited; and that a call centre tracking its customers' emotions, such as anger or impatience, is not prohibited by that article. The guidelines state that they are non-binding; the ban itself is law.
What this means
The law splits this task down the middle: software may flag the customer who is about to complain, but in the EU it may not read the team member who has quietly stopped trying. Noticing that stays with the supervisor.
What it does not yet show
EU law and non-binding guidance; it bans one kind of inference, not monitoring of output or speed, and does not show how supervisors actually notice trouble.
What you can check
Open the Commission's Guidelines on prohibited AI practices, C(2025) 5052, and find "track their employee's emotions, such as anger, is prohibited".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. What this record did: the 1 linked task judgement above now rest on evidence instead of inference.
Source
European Commission — Guidelines on prohibited artificial intelligence practices established by Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), C(2025) 5052 final (Brussels, 29.7.2025) · verified 2026-09-29 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-29 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.