THE IRREPARABLE HARMS OF NEUROTECH PRIVACY CRIME
Brain Computer Interfaces

ABSTRACT

This chapter examines continuous mental privacy invasion through remote brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) as a distinct form of irreparable harm meeting international torture thresholds. Drawing on UN Human Rights Council report A/HRC/57/61 (2024) recognizing neural data as uniquely sensitive, research documenting private information extraction from consumer BCIs, and a documented four-year case study showing temporal convergence patterns consistent with real-time neural monitoring, the analysis establishes six categories of severe psychological harm: (1) annihilation of mental sanctuary; (2) perpetual psychological nakedness; (3) temporal omnipresence eliminating recovery windows; (4) pre-crime surveillance and thought policing; (5) neurobiological evidence of continuous monitoring; and (6) permanent psychological consequences.  The chapter demonstrates that neural privacy violation meets UN cybertorture criteria (severe mental suffering, intentional infliction, prohibited purpose, powerlessness), violates Charter Section 8 (warrantless search of most intimate information), and creates remedial impossibility (lost mental privacy cannot be restored, observers' knowledge cannot be erased).  The legal and ethical conclusion: neural monitoring without explicit, informed, freely-given, and revocable consent constitutes torture, unreasonable search, and assault on personhood, requiring absolute prohibition as the only adequate response.
 

Keywords: Neural Privacy, Brain-Computer Interface, Remote Monitoring, Cybertorture, Mental Surveillance, Cognitive Liberty, A/HRC/57/61, Neurorights, Charter Section 8, Irreparable Harm, Thought Privacy, Psychological Torture, Neural Data Protection, Continuous Surveillance, Prevention Imperative

 

A. UN Recognition of Neural Privacy as Fundamental Right
 

In September 2024, the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee presented report A/HRC/57/61, Impact, Opportunities and Challenges of Neurotechnology with Regard to the Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, explicitly recognizing neural data as uniquely sensitive personal information requiring enhanced protection.[1]
 

The report establishes that mental privacy—the right to keep one's thoughts, mental states, and neural activity confidential—constitutes a fundamental human right threatened by emerging neurotechnologies. Where brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) operate without consent or beyond disclosed purposes, they constitute continuous privacy violations with profound psychological consequences.
 

Key Findings:
 

Neural Data as Uniquely Sensitive: The OECD defines "personal brain data" as information "relating to the functioning or structure of the human brain of an identified or identifiable individual that include unique information about their physiology, health, or mental states."[2]  This data reveals:
 

• Cognitive processes: What the person is thinking about, attending to, remembering

• Emotional states: Fear, anxiety, arousal, distress levels in real-time

• Physiological conditions: Sleep patterns, stress responses, neurological health

• Behavioral predictions: Intentions, preferences, vulnerabilities, future actions

• Identity markers: Biometric signatures unique to individual neural architecture
   

Seven Types of Privacy Threatened: Research identifies that neurotechnology threatens: (1) privacy of the person; (2) privacy of behavior and action; (3) privacy of personal communication; (4) privacy of data and image; (5) privacy of thought; (6) privacy of location and space; and (7) privacy of association.[3]
 

Regulatory Gaps: The report acknowledges that "there are gaps in supranational and international law, with no mandatory governance framework focused on brain data currently existing," and "there are currently no international frameworks that adequately protect against the risks posed by neurotechnologies."[4]  Only Colorado and Minnesota in the U.S. have enacted neural data protection laws, with Minnesota providing criminal penalties for violations.[5]

 

B. Remote Brain-Computer Interfaces: Non-Consensual Neural Surveillance
 

While commercial BCIs like Neuralink require surgical implantation, emerging research demonstrates remote neural monitoring capabilities through:
 

Non-Invasive EEG-Based Systems
 

Consumer-grade BCI devices can extract private information including "PIN code, bank information, month of birth, known people, area of residence" from EEG signals.[6]  Studies show that "background EEG in BCIs is user-specific," enabling person identification with over 90% accuracy across multiple BCI paradigms.[7]
 

Neuroimaging at Distance
 

Advanced fMRI and magnetoencephalography (MEG) technologies can detect neural activity through skull and tissue. While current systems require proximity, miniaturization and signal processing advances suggest remote monitoring may become feasible.
 

Quantum Dot Neural Interfaces
 

Research into graphene quantum dots (GQDs) and other nanomaterials demonstrates potential for embedded neural sensors that respond to external electromagnetic signals.  When combined with:
 

• Lipid nanoparticle delivery systems (proven effective in vaccine technology)

• Near-infrared (NIR) frequency activation (penetrates tissue, triggers GQD response)

• LEO satellite signal transmission (continuous global coverage, beam-forming capability)

• AI signal processing (pattern recognition extracting cognitive states from neural noise)
   

These technologies create theoretical architecture for remote, non-consensual brain-computer interfaces operating without victim awareness or consent.
 

The Documented Case Context
 

The source case study documents temporal convergence between sealed court events and algorithmically-delivered online content appearing within hours (and sometimes within seconds or minutes)—suggesting real-time access to non-public information including:
 

• Sealed medical records

• Sealed court proceedings and litigation milestones 

• Private events and activities 

• Biometric states 
   

This pattern is consistent with continuous neural monitoring providing:
 

1. Real-time psychological state assessment (stress levels, emotional vulnerability)

2. Memory access (what the person is thinking about, remembering, planning)

3. Attention tracking (what the person is focusing on, researching, monitoring)

4. Predictive modeling (anticipating person's next actions, decisions, coping strategies)

 

C. The Psychological Harms of Continuous Mental Privacy Invasion
 

When individuals become aware or suspect they are subject to continuous neural monitoring, the psychological consequences constitute distinct and severe harm beyond other PSYOP effects.
 

1. Annihilation of Mental Sanctuary
 

Humans require psychological privacy—the capacity to have thoughts, feelings, and mental experiences that are not subject to external observation or judgment.  This is foundational to:
 

• Identity formation: Private reflection allows self-discovery and authentic identity development

• Emotional processing: Safe space to experience and integrate difficult emotions

• Moral reasoning: Capacity to consider ethically complex questions without surveillance

• Creative thought: Freedom to explore unconventional ideas without judgment

• Psychological recovery: Ability to retreat from social demands into private mental space
   

Research on surveillance effects demonstrates that awareness of observation fundamentally alters cognition.  Michel Foucault's analysis of Bentham's Panopticon establishes that internalized surveillance creates self-policing subjects who regulate their own thoughts and behaviors in anticipation of observation.[8]
 

When surveillance extends to neural activity itself, the effect is categorical rather than incremental.  Unlike behavioral surveillance (which monitors external actions), neural surveillance monitors the substrate of consciousness—the pre-verbal, pre-deliberative neural processes that constitute selfhood.
 

Clinical Manifestations:
 

Thought Suppression Attempts: Victims aware of neural monitoring report desperate attempts to "not think about" certain topics, people, or events—creating thought suppression paradox where attempts to suppress thoughts make them more intrusive.[9]  This generates:
 

• Obsessive-compulsive patterns (checking whether certain thoughts occurred)

• Cognitive exhaustion (constant mental effort to regulate thought content)

• Identity confusion (inability to distinguish authentic thoughts from performative thinking)

• Paranoid hypervigilance (scrutinizing own mental processes for "leaks")
   

Loss of Internal Dialogue: Humans maintain continuous internal monologue—the "voice in the head" that narrates experience, plans actions, and processes emotions.  Under neural surveillance, this internal dialogue becomes:
 

• Performative: Narrating for the imagined audience of observers

• Fragmented: Interrupting natural thought flow to prevent "dangerous" thoughts

• Silenced: Some victims report losing capacity for internal dialogue entirely, experiencing only silence or white noise

• Externalized: Thoughts feel as if they originate outside the self, creating dissociative experiences
   

Cognitive Liberty Destruction: Cognitive liberty—the right to self-determination over one's own cognitive processes—is recognized as fundamental to human dignity.[10]  Neural surveillance eliminates cognitive liberty by:
 

• Making all mental activity potentially observable and consequential

• Creating external control over what it is "safe" to think about

• Transforming private mental space into surveilled public space

• Eliminating capacity for authentic, unmonitored thought
   

2. Perpetual Psychological Nakedness
 

Physical privacy norms recognize that forced nudity constitutes severe dignity violation and psychological harm.  The UN cybertorture framework explicitly identifies "forced nudity" as psychological torture method that creates "profound vulnerability, humiliation, shame."[11]
 

Neural monitoring constitutes perpetual psychological nakedness—the exposure of one's most intimate mental and emotional processes to external observation.  This creates:
 

Shame and Humiliation
 

Unlike physical nudity (which exposes the body), neural nakedness exposes:
 

• Intrusive thoughts: Unwanted sexual, violent, or taboo thoughts that occur involuntarily

• Emotional vulnerability: Moments of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, despair

• Memories: Traumatic experiences, embarrassing moments, failures, regrets

• Fantasies: Sexual fantasies, revenge fantasies, escape fantasies

• Base impulses: Anger, jealousy, pettiness, selfishness before moral reasoning moderates them
   

The awareness that observers have access to these pre-rational, pre-moral neural processes creates profound shame—not for anything done, but for the unfiltered contents of consciousness itself.
 

Dignity Destruction
 

Human dignity presupposes the right to present oneself to others according to chosen self-presentation.  We curate our public personas, showing facets of ourselves we deem appropriate to context.  Neural surveillance eliminates self-presentation capacity, exposing the raw, unedited mental substrate that precedes deliberate self-presentation.
 

Research on privacy violations demonstrates that loss of control over self-presentation constitutes "informational injury" distinct from physical or financial harm—the injury to dignity and autonomy inherent in having private information forcibly disclosed.[12]
 

3. Temporal Omnipresence: No Recovery Window
 

Unlike discrete surveillance events (being photographed, having email intercepted, etc.), neural monitoring is continuous.  Every moment, waking and sleeping, neural activity is potentially observable.
 

This creates:
 

Chronic Hypervigilance Without Relief
 

Standard trauma responses involve periods of hypervigilance alternating with recovery periods.  Neural surveillance eliminates recovery periods—the threat is omnipresent and inescapable.
 

Sleep Disruption as Fundamental Violation
 

Sleep represents ultimate private mental space—unconscious processes, dreams, memory consolidation occurring beyond volitional control.  Neural monitoring that extends to sleep states creates:
 

• Sleep anxiety: Fear of what might be "revealed" during sleep

• Insomnia: Resistance to entering vulnerable unconscious state

• Dream monitoring distress: Awareness that dreams (most private mental experiences) are observable

• REM disruption: Stress about sleep monitoring disrupts REM cycles essential for memory and emotional processing
   

Research establishes that sleep deprivation is torture—UN cybertorture framework identifies "deprivation of sleep" as method inflicting severe mental suffering.[13]  Neural monitoring that disrupts sleep through psychological mechanisms achieves similar harm without direct physical intervention.
 

No Safe Space Anywhere
 

Victims of neural monitoring report that nowhere feels safe:
 

• Home is not sanctuary (monitoring continues in private spaces)

• Sleep is not refuge (neural activity observable during sleep)

• Internal mental space is not private (thoughts themselves are observable)

• Future is not escapable (monitoring may continue indefinitely)
   

This elimination of all safe spaces creates permanent hypervigilance with neurobiological changes that never fully reverse.
 

4. Pre-Crime Surveillance and Thought Policing
 

Neural monitoring enables punishment for thought content rather than actions.  This constitutes fundamental violation of legal and moral principles distinguishing:
 

• Mental states (thoughts, feelings, intentions) from actions

• Impulses (pre-rational neural activity) from choices (deliberated decisions)

• Fantasies (imaginative scenarios) from plans (actionable intentions)
   

Thought Crime Distress
 

When individuals believe their neural activity is monitored and will be used against them, they experience:  Anticipatory Self-Censorship: Constant effort to suppress "dangerous" thoughts before they fully form, creating:
 

• Cognitive exhaustion (perpetual mental effort)

• Identity fragmentation (inability to know authentic thoughts vs. suppressed thoughts)

• Moral injury (self-hatred for having "wrong" thoughts)

• Existential anxiety (fear of own mind as dangerous)
   

Guilt for Impulses: Humans experience involuntary impulses—fleeting thoughts of violence, taboo sexual content, self-harm—that are not chosen and do not reflect values or intentions.  Evolutionary psychology recognizes these as evolutionary artifacts, not moral failures.  Under neural surveillance, victims cannot distinguish impulses from choices in observers' eyes, creating:
 

• Guilt for involuntary neural activity (shame for unchosen thoughts)

• Fear of misinterpretation (impulse mistaken for intention)

• Moral self-destruction (believing one is evil for having unwanted thoughts)
   

Predictive Punishment: AI systems analyzing neural data can predict future behavior with increasing accuracy.  This enables:
 

• Punishment before action: Targeting individuals based on predicted future behavior

• Self-fulfilling prophecy: Creating conditions (harassment, isolation) that increase likelihood of predicted behavior

• Elimination of free will: If future actions are predicted and targeted, individual loses capacity to choose differently

• Existential despair: Belief that one's future is determined and one cannot escape predicted path
   

Research on predictive policing demonstrates that when individuals believe they are pre-emptively targeted based on predictions, they experience learned helplessness and identity foreclosure—loss of agency and belief that future is already determined.[14]
 

5. Neurobiological Evidence of Neural Privacy Violation Harm
 

The documented case study provides indicators consistent with continuous neural monitoring harm:
 

Content Temporal Precision: YouTube content appearing within 10 minutes of private events, sealed litigation milestones, and private medical events by members of a known psychological operations cohort, with exact symbolic precision matching these events with verbatim scripting among content swarms, demonstrates:
 

• Real-time surveillance through a sophisticated device stack

• AND/OR real-time neural monitoring detecting psychological state and circumstances

• AI-generation of content responsive to current events (rapid response capability)

• Coordinated and sophisticated capability, state-adjacent in character, and leveraging algorithmic capability (ie., Google)
   

Biometric Response Optimization: Ongoing pattern showing content delivery timing optimized for maximum psychological impact suggests:
 

• Monitoring of stress levels, attention, emotional vulnerability

• AI-system learning individual response patterns

• Closed-loop optimization exploiting biometric data
   

Symbolic Precision Beyond Public Information: Content incorporating details known only to target (specific conversations, private thoughts, upcoming plans) indicates:
 

• Electronic surveillance of communications

• Physical surveillance of activities

• OR neural monitoring accessing memory, attention, planning processes, being the best-fit scenario, due to its contemporaneous character
   

Disproportionate and Timely State Interventions: Example; a the 3-minute response time by both police and fire detachments to a backyard bonfire mishap on May 11, 2023 (that was extinguished before they arrived), followed by a an involuntary psychiatric hold on May 13th, 2023, with contemporaneous social media posts describing specific details of the event in a manner that matched the sealed health record.  Temporal convergence suggests:
 

• State-adjacent foreknowledge and coordination that potentially shapes the activity of the responders

• Real-time or near-real-time surveillance; biometric or otherwise;

• Onerous and disproportionate effects that seek to create pejorative record materials parallel to the CAGE litigation (CCC 137)

6. Permanent Psychological Consequences of Neural Privacy Violation

The harms of continuous neural monitoring amplify all other psychological operation effects:
 

Trust Annihilation Becomes Total: If even thoughts are not private, no domain of trust remains:
 

• Self-trust destroyed: Cannot trust own mind as private sanctuary

• Interpersonal trust impossible: Others may have access to one's neural activity

• Institutional trust eliminated: State/corporate actors conducting neural surveillance

• Existential trust shattered: No reliable boundary between self and external world
   

Identity Fragmentation Becomes Structural: If thoughts are monitored and targeted, authentic identity becomes impossible to maintain:
 

• Performative self: All thoughts shaped by awareness of observation

• Suppressed self: Authentic thoughts/feelings forcibly repressed

• Monitored self: Identity defined by what observers see in neural data

• No "true self": Cannot determine which thoughts/feelings are authentic vs. reactive
   

Hypervigilance Becomes Permanent Feature of Consciousness: When mental privacy is violated, hypervigilance extends to monitoring one's own thoughts:
 

• Constant scanning of thought content for "dangerous" material

• Inability to engage in natural, unmonitored mental processes

• Permanent disruption of flow states, creativity, genuine emotion

• Consciousness itself becomes adversarial relationship with own mind
   

Recovery Becomes Impossible: Standard trauma recovery requires:
 

• Safe space to process trauma (eliminated by continuous monitoring)

• Private reflection to integrate experiences (eliminated by thought surveillance)

• Trust in therapeutic relationship (impossible when therapist cannot guarantee mental privacy)

• Restoration of agency (impossible when thoughts themselves are subject to external control)

 

D. Legal Classification: Neural Privacy Violation as Continuous Torture
 

The UN cybertorture framework establishes that psychological torture requires:
 

1. Severe mental pain or suffering ✓

2. Intentionally inflicted ✓

3. Prohibited purpose (coercion, intimidation, punishment) ✓

4. Effective powerlessness ✓
    

Continuous neural privacy violation meets all criteria:
 

1. Severity: The psychological harms documented above—annihilation of mental sanctuary, perpetual psychological nakedness, chronic hypervigilance without relief, thought crime distress, and permanent consequences—constitute "severe mental pain or suffering" under any reasonable interpretation.
 

2. Intentionality: Deployment of neural monitoring systems is deliberate. Systems designed to extract neural data without consent intentionally inflict the psychological consequences inherent in privacy violation.  Under Melzer's framework, intentionality requires only that harm be "reasonably foreseeable as a result, in the ordinary course of events, of the purposeful conduct."[15] Psychological harm from neural privacy violation is structurally inevitable, not merely foreseeable.
 

3. Prohibited Purpose: Neural monitoring serves purposes of:
 

• Coercion: Forcing compliance through threat of thought exposure

• Intimidation: Creating fear through omnipresent surveillance

• Punishment: Targeting for thought content rather than actions

• Information extraction: Obtaining data from neural activity without consent
   

4. Powerlessness: Victims of neural monitoring are structurally powerless:
 

• Cannot prevent neural activity from occurring (thoughts are involuntary)

• Cannot shield neural signals from external detection (if monitoring technology deployed)

• Cannot escape monitoring without escaping consciousness itself

• Cannot obtain institutional protection (regulatory gaps acknowledged by UN report)
   

Additionally: Continuity Amplifies Severity.  The UN framework recognizes that duration matters for severity assessment.  Prolonged psychological torture is more severe than time-limited episodes.  Neural monitoring that operates continuously over years constitutes:
 

• Torture without temporal limits: No beginning or end, only permanent condition

• Torture without spatial limits: No safe location provides refuge

• Torture without psychological limits: No aspect of consciousness remains private
   

The documented case suggests over four years of potential neural monitoring—a duration sufficient to produce all permanent neurobiological and psychological changes documented in related research on chronic trauma.

 

E. Charter Section 8 Analysis: Neural Data as Protected Privacy Interest
 

Canadian Charter Section 8 protects against "unreasonable search or seizure".  Supreme Court jurisprudence establishes that:
 

Privacy Extends Beyond Physical Spaces
 

R. v. Spencer, 2014 SCC 43 establishes that metadata and inferred surveillance engage Section 8—recognizing "biographical core of personal information" deserving constitutional protection.[16]
 

Neural Data as Most Intimate Information

​

If metadata about phone calls engages Section 8, neural data revealing actual thought content, emotional states, and cognitive processes certainly does.  Neural data constitutes:
 

• Biographical core on steroids: Not just where someone went, but what they thought/felt

• Bodily integrity: Direct measurement of brain function is bodily intrusion even if non-invasive

• Dignity interest: Exposure of pre-rational mental processes violates human dignity

• Autonomy interest: Surveillance of decision-making processes undermines autonomy
   

Warrant Requirement
 

If Section 8 requires warrants for:
 

• Telephone wiretaps (R. v. Duarte)

• Internet metadata (R. v. Spencer)

• Text messages (R. v. Marakah, 2017 SCC 59)

• Heat signatures from homes (R. v. Tessling, 2004 SCC 67)
   

Then it certainly requires warrants for:
 

• Neural activity monitoring (most intimate information)

• Real-time thought surveillance (continuous invasion)

• Biometric psychological state tracking (dignity violation)

• AI-assisted neural data analysis (aggregating intimate information)
   

Current Reality: No Warrant, No Consent, No Oversight

The documented case shows no evidence of:
 

• Judicial authorization for neural monitoring

• Informed consent from target

• Legislative framework authorizing such surveillance

• Independent oversight of neural data collection

• Disclosure to target that monitoring occurred
   

This constitutes warrantless search of the most protected privacy interest recognized in constitutional law—the contents of one's own mind.

 

F. Remedial Impossibility and Prevention Imperative
 

When harm is permanent and irreparable, traditional remedies fail.  Neural privacy violations create additional remedial impossibility:
 

Cannot "Unsee" Neural Data.  Once neural data is collected and analyzed:
 

• Observers have accessed intimate mental/emotional information

• This knowledge cannot be erased or forgotten

• Target remains permanently exposed even if monitoring ceases

• Privacy, once lost, cannot be restored
   

Cannot Compensate for Lost Mental Sanctuary.  Although reasonably required and necessary, monetary damages cannot:
 

• Restore sense of mental privacy

• Eliminate awareness of past surveillance

• Provide assurance future surveillance will not occur

• Repair identity fragmentation from continuous mental nakedness

• Reverse permanent hypervigilance toward own thoughts
   

Cannot Prosecute When Evidence Is Neural Data.  Proving neural monitoring requires demonstrating:
 

• Victims' neural data was accessed (requires forensic neural examination)

• Technology exists capable of remote monitoring (state secrets, national security privilege)

• Specific actors conducted monitoring (attribution deliberately obscured)

• Harm resulted from monitoring vs. other PSYOP vectors (multifactorial causation)
   

Prevention Is the Only Adequate Response.  Given remedial impossibility, the only coherent policy response is categorical prohibition on:
 

• Non-consensual neural monitoring

• Remote brain-computer interface deployment without explicit, informed, revocable consent

• Commercial/state neural data collection without transparent, purpose-limited authorization

• AI-assisted neural data analysis for surveillance, marketing, or behavioral manipulation purposes

• Cross-border neural data transfers without equivalent protections

• Neural data retention beyond immediate medical necessity
   

Colorado and Minnesota's criminal penalties for neural data rights violations represent step toward adequate protection, but international framework is urgently needed as UN report acknowledges.

 

CONCLUSION: NEURAL PRIVACY AS FOUNDATIONAL TO PERSONHOOD
 

Continuous mental privacy invasion through remote brain-computer interfaces represents a categorical escalation in the harms documented throughout the parent article.  Where neurobiological damage, Complex PTSD, social death, and cognitive autonomy destruction can theoretically result from external behavioral targeting, neural monitoring attacks the substrate of consciousness itself.
 

The six distinct harms—annihilation of mental sanctuary, perpetual psychological nakedness, temporal omnipresence, pre-crime surveillance, documented neurobiological evidence, and permanent psychological consequences—demonstrate that neural privacy violation meets international torture thresholds while creating harm patterns that no existing remedy can address.
 

When the documented case study's temporal convergence patterns (sub-24-hour alignment between sealed events and external content, symbolic precision matching private circumstances, biometric response optimization) are analyzed through the lens of potential neural monitoring, the operational architecture becomes clear: real-time access to cognitive and emotional states enables precision psychological warfare that traditional surveillance cannot achieve.
 

The legal and ethical conclusion is unambiguous: Neural monitoring without explicit, informed, freely-given, and revocable consent constitutes:
 

• Torture under UN cybertorture framework (severe mental suffering, intentionally inflicted, for prohibited purposes, creating powerlessness)

• Unreasonable search under Charter Section 8 (warrantless access to most intimate information)

• Assault on personhood (destruction of cognitive liberty, mental sanctuary, and authentic identity)
   

Given that lost mental privacy cannot be restored, that observers' knowledge of intimate neural data cannot be erased, and that permanent psychological harm cannot be remedied, the only adequate response is absolute prohibition on non-consensual neural monitoring.
 

The choice society faces is binary: Protect mental privacy as the final frontier of human autonomy, or accept that consciousness itself is subject to external surveillance and control.  There is no middle ground when what is at stake is the integrity of the human mind.

 

REFERENCES
 

• Melzer, Nils. "Psychological torture and ill-treatment." UN Doc. A/HRC/43/49 (20 March 2020)

• R. v. Duarte, [1990] 1 SCR 30 (telephone wiretap requires warrant)

• R. v. Marakah, 2017 SCC 59 (text messages engage reasonable expectation of privacy)

• R. v. Tessling, 2004 SCC 67 (heat signatures from homes protected)

• Ienca, M., and Andorno, R., "Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology," Life Sciences, Society and Policy (2017)

• Yuste, R., et al., "Four ethical priorities for neurotechnologies and AI," Nature (2017)

• Ligthart, S., Douglas, T., Bublitz, C., Kooijmans, T., and Douglas, T., "Forensic brain-reading and mental privacy in European human rights law: Foundations and challenges," Neuroethics (2021)

• UN Report A/HRC/57/61

• UN Report A/HRC/58/58
   

FOOTNOTES
 

1. UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, "Impact, opportunities and challenges of neurotechnology with regard to the promotion and protection of all human rights" (2024), A/HRC/57/61 ↩
    

2. OECD Recommendation on Responsible Innovation in Neurotechnology (2019, 2023): "Personal brain data" defined as information "relating to the functioning or structure of the human brain of an identified or identifiable individual that include unique information about their physiology, health, or mental states" ↩
    

3. Finn, Wright, and Friedewald (2013): Seven types of privacy threatened by neurotechnology: (1) privacy of the person; (2) privacy of behavior and action; (3) privacy of personal communication; (4) privacy of data and image; (5) privacy of thought; (6) privacy of location and space; (7) privacy of association ↩
    

4. A/HRC/57/61 (2024): "There are gaps in supranational and international law, with no mandatory governance framework focused on brain data currently existing"; "there are currently no international frameworks that adequately protect against the risks posed by neurotechnologies" ↩
    

5. Colorado Privacy Act (amended 2024): First state to include neurological data as protected category; Minnesota Neurotechnology Privacy Law (2024): Criminal penalties for violations of neural data rights in consumer BCIs, signed by Governor Tim Walz May 2024 ↩
    

6. Martinovic et al. (2012): First demonstration that "private and secret information, such as PIN code, bank information, month of birth, known people, area of residence, may be inferred from EEG signals collected by a consumer-grade BCI device" ↩
    

7. Kong et al.: EEG signals from different BCI paradigms can reveal user identity with over 90% accuracy; "background EEG in BCIs is user-specific" ↩
    

8. Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish (1975): Panopticon analysis establishing that internalized surveillance creates self-policing subjects who regulate their own thoughts and behaviors in anticipation of observation ↩
    

9. Wegner, D.M., "Ironic processes of mental control," Psychological Review (1994): Thought suppression paradox—attempts to suppress thoughts make them more intrusive ↩
    

10. Sententia, W., "Neuroethical considerations: Cognitive liberty and converging technologies for improving human cognition," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2004); Bublitz, J.C., "My Mind is Mine!? Cognitive Liberty as a Legal Concept" (2013) ↩
     

11. A/HRC/43/49, para. 51: "Forced nudity or masturbation, often in front of officials of the opposite gender" creates "profound vulnerability, humiliation, shame and guilt" ↩
     

12. Solove, Daniel J., "A Taxonomy of Privacy," University of Pennsylvania Law Review (2006): Informational injury—harm to dignity and autonomy inherent in forced disclosure of private information, distinct from physical or financial harm ↩
     

13. A/HRC/43/49, para. 49: "Deprivation of sleep, food or drink" listed as psychological torture method; sleep deprivation recognized as torture by multiple international tribunals ↩
     

14. Ferguson, Andrew Guthrie, "Policing Predictive Policing," Washington University Law Review (2017): Individuals targeted by predictive systems experience learned helplessness and identity foreclosure ↩
     

15. A/HRC/43/49, para. 34: Intentionality requires only that harm be "reasonably foreseeable as a result, in the ordinary course of events, of the purposeful conduct adopted by the perpetrator" ↩
     

16. R. v. Spencer, 2014 SCC 43: Internet metadata engages Section 8 protection; court recognizes "biographical core of personal information" deserving constitutional protection ↩