Emotional Privacy: A philosophical investigation of emotion recognition technology

In recent years artificial intelligence has moved decisively into the domain of affect. Technological breakthroughs, together with commercial enthusiasm and political interest, have accelerated this expansion. Affective monitoring cameras are now present in public spaces. Emotion sensitive tutoring systems are being introduced in classrooms. Workplaces experiment with analytics that track employees’ positivity (or lack thereof). And border control authorities explore systems that allegedly detect deception through micro-expressions. Although many of these systems are scientifically contested and face significant technical limitations, emotion recognition technologies (ERTs) are making impressive leaps forward, and this continuous progress raises an urgent philosophical question: what would happen to social life, to our expressive practices, and to our normative expectations if ERTs were to function as intended and reliably track our affective lives in real time?