More states accept laws to protect information that is generated by the brain and nervous system of a person, because technology improves the ability to unlock the sensitive details of the health of a person, mental situations, emotions and cognitive functioning.
Colorado” CaliforniaAnd Montana belong to the states that recently require brain data being protected that are collected by devices outside of medical institutions. This includes headphones, earbuds and other portable consumer products that are aimed at improving sleep, focus and aging by measuring electrical activities and sending the data to an app on users’ phones.
A report Due to the Neurorights Foundation, a representation of interests that want to protect against the abuse of the abuse of neurotechnology, it turned out that 29 of the 30 companies with neurotechnological products that can be purchased online have access to brain data and “do not offer meaningful restrictions on this access.” Almost all can share data with third parties.
In June, the American Medical Association called for greater regulations of neural data. In April, various democratic members of the US Senate Committee for Trade, Science and Transport asked the Federal Trade Commission To investigate whether companies operate the brain data of consumers. Juliana Gruenwald Henderson, a deputy director of the FTC’s Office of Public Affairs, said the agency had received the letter but had no extra comment.
Although the current devices collect relatively basic information such as sleeping states, proponents of the protection of brain data protection warns that future technologies, including artificial intelligence, can extract more personal and sensitive information about the medical disorders of people or inner thoughts.
“If you collect the data today, what can you read in five years, because the technology is improving so quickly?” Said the Democratic State Senator Cathy Kipp, who sponsored the Neural Data Protection Act of 2024 when she was in the state house of representatives.
Since both excitement and fear of AI -Buildd, at least 28 states and the US Virgin Islands have determined A type AI regulation separate from the privacy drawings that protect neural data. President Donald Trump’s’A big nice billIncluding a 10 -year stopping on states that take laws to regulate AI, but the Senate has removed that provision from the Budget Reconciliation Bill before he voted to approve it on July 1.
The spirit of laws in Colorado, California and Montana is to protect the neural data itself, not to regulate algorithm or AI that it could use, said Sean Pauzauskie, medical director of the Neurorights Foundation.
But neurotechnology and AI go hand in hand, said Pauzauskie. “Much of what these devices promise is based on pattern recognition. AI really stimulates the usability and meaning of the patterns in the brain data.”
Cristin Welle, A professor in neurosurgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said that AI’s ability to identify patterns is a game change in her field. “But the contribution of the neural data of a person about an AI training set must be voluntary. It should be an opt-in, not a given.”
In 2021, Chile became the first country to take a constitutional change for neurorights, which prioritizing human rights in the development of neurotechnology and collection of neural data, and UNESCO has said that neurotechnology and artificial intelligence together can pose a threat to human identity and autonomous.
Neurotechnology can sound like Science Fiction. Researchers used one cap with 128 electrodes And an AI model to decode the electrical signals of the brain of thoughts in speech. And two years ago a study described how neuroscientists reconstructed the Pink Floyd -song “Another stone in the wall”By analyzing the brain signals of 29 epilepsy patients who listened to the song with electrodes implanted in their brains.
The aim is to use neurotechnology to help people with paralysis or speech disorders, and to treat or diagnose traumatic brain injuries and brain disorders such as Alzheimer or Parkinson’s. Elon Musk’s Neuralink and SynchronousFinanced by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, belong to the companies with clinical tests that are underway for devices that are implanted in the brain.
Pauzauskie, a hospital neurologist, began to worry four years ago about the fading of the line between clinical and consumer use of neural data. He noted that the devices used by his epilepsy patients were also available online for purchase, but without protection by the portability and accountability act in medical environments.
Two years ago, Pauzauskie approached Kipp during a component meeting in his home town of Fort Collins to propose a law to protect brain data in Colorado. “The first words from her mouth that I would never have forgotten:” Who would be against people who own their own brain data? “He said.
Brain Data Protection is one of the rare issues that legislators unite in the political aisle. The accounts in California, Montana and Colorado passed unanimously or almost unanimously. The Montana law will take effect in October.
Neural legislation on data protection in Colorado and California is changing the general consumer privacy law of each state, while the Montana law contributes to its existing genetic information privacy law. Colorado and Montana require initial explicit permission to collect or use neural data and permission or the possibility to unsubscribe before this data is announced to a third party. A company must offer consumers a way to remove their data when they are active in all three states.
“I want a very hard line in the sand that says, you have this completely,” said the Republican Senator Daniel Zolnikov of Montana, who sponsored the neural data law of his state and other privacy laws. “You must give permission. You have the right to have it removed. You have full rights about this information.”
For Zolnikov, Montana’s bill is a blueprint for national neural legislation on data protection, and Pauskie said that the support of legal efforts by groups such as the AMA clears the way for further federal and national efforts.
Welle agreed that federal regulations are needed in addition to these new state laws. “I absolutely hope that we can think of something at the national level that the neural rights of people can strengthen on the law, because I think this will become more important than we can even imagine at the moment.”
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