We do not read emotions in your voice
Since February 2025, EU law prohibits AI systems that infer a person's emotions from biometric data at work. Mr.Speech has no sentiment scoring, no mood detection and no engagement metric. Here is exactly what the rule says and exactly what we do.
- No sentiment scoring
- No mood or stress detection
- No engagement or energy scores
- In force since 2 February 2025
What Article 5 actually prohibits
This is a summary for orientation, not legal advice. Check the text and your own advisers before making a procurement decision.
Inferring emotions at work is a prohibited practice
Article 5(1)(f) of the EU AI Act prohibits placing on the market or using AI systems that infer the emotions of a person in the workplace or in education institutions, with narrow exceptions for medical and safety reasons.
It applies to conclusions drawn from the body
The prohibition targets emotion inferred from biometric data, which includes the voice, the face, gait and physiological signals. Reading a sentiment from written text is a different question and is not covered by this particular prohibition.
It has been in force since February 2025
The prohibited practices chapter became applicable on 2 February 2025, and it reaches every employer operating in the EU. Penalties run up to 35 million euro or 7 percent of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher.
Detecting a state is not the same as concluding a feeling
Noting a plainly visible physical state is treated differently from drawing a conclusion about what someone feels. The line sits at the inference, which is precisely the line we chose not to cross.
What Mr.Speech does with a voice
Meetings are the place a tool would be tempted to score people. Ours does not.
We turn speech into text
Transcription, punctuation and cleanup. The output is what was said, not a judgement about the person who said it.
We separate who spoke, not how they felt
Your microphone and the other side of the call are recorded as separate tracks, and segments are attributed to speakers so a summary can say who committed to what. That is attribution, not emotional assessment. Labelling can be turned off entirely.
In a recurring one to one, a voice can be remembered
So a name carries over between meetings with the same person instead of resetting to Speaker 1. This runs on your machine, and it answers who is talking, never how they are doing.
We do not score people
No sentiment analysis, no mood or stress detection, no talk-time ranking presented as engagement, no personality inference, no coaching score derived from how someone sounds. None of it is in the product and none of it is planned.
Summaries are held to the transcript
Meeting AI is instructed never to invent a decision, a task or a name that was not in the transcript. It reports what was said, and you can push back on it in chat.
What buyers ask us
Are you saying competing tools are illegal?
No, and we would not make that claim about anyone else's product. Whether a given feature falls under the prohibition depends on how it is built and where it is used, and only its maker can answer that. We are telling you what our product does, so you can compare for yourself.
Is sentiment analysis always prohibited?
No. The Article 5 prohibition is about inferring emotions from biometric data in workplace and education settings. Sentiment drawn from written text sits outside that particular prohibition. We do not offer either.
Does recognising a voice count as emotion recognition?
They are different things. Recognising a voice answers who is speaking. Emotion recognition draws a conclusion about an inner state. Mr.Speech does the first, on your machine, and never the second.
Can I switch speaker features off completely?
Yes. With labelling off, a meeting renders as You and Others, and the two audio channels are still kept apart so the transcript stays readable.
Is this legal advice?
No. This page describes our product and summarises a rule so you can start your own assessment. For a compliance decision, read the regulation and talk to your advisers.
