EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE — HOW IT WORKS & YOUR PRIVACY
What is Emotional Intelligence? When a study has Emotional Intelligence enabled, Outset analyzes facial expressions visible on your webcam during the interview to detect and categorize emotional reactions. This helps researchers understand how participants respond to questions beyond what they say out loud. Outset conducts this analysis on behalf of its customers (the organizations that run studies through Outset).
What data is captured? Low-frequency image frames (approximately one frame every two seconds) are captured from your webcam video during the interview. Your full video recording is also analyzed after the interview concludes. Currently, only facial expressions are analyzed — tone of voice and speech patterns are not analyzed at this time.
Who processes this data? Your video and image frames are processed by Google (Gemini) for facial expression analysis. Structured text summaries of detected emotions — never video or image data — are then passed to OpenAI models used to power the AI interviewer and insights dashboard.
What this system does NOT do
- Does not identify you or match your face to any identity
- Does not infer demographics such as age, race, or gender
- Does not attempt to infer intentions, beliefs, or mental states beyond observable facial expressions
How long is my data retained? Image frames and recordings temporarily uploaded to Gemini for facial expression analysis are deleted immediately after each analysis completes; Google also auto-expires any uploaded files within 48 hours as a backup. Full interview video recordings are retained by Outset until deleted upon the relevant customer's request or the end of the customer relationship.
Is this feature always on? No. Emotional Intelligence is off by default and must be explicitly enabled by the organization running your study. It can also be turned off on a per-project basis. It only applies to interviews going forward — it does not analyze any past recordings.
Questions? Reach out to support@outset.ai.