Towards a Governance Framework for Brain Data

Ethical Concerns and Perceptions of Consumer Neurotechnology from Lived Experiences of Mental Workload Tracking

“…Consumer neurotechnology is arriving, and we are largely unprepared. Literature is increasingly producing guidelines aiming to mitigate the negative implications that consumer neurotechnology will unintentionally bring [9,19,20,23,41,42]. That research has generally operated by identifying gaps in existing ethical and legal frameworks that do not accommodate for the addition of consumer neurotechnology into the market, and discussions and guidelines are outlined in relation to this.…”

“…The consumer neurotechnology market (where products can be sold directly to consumers), which includes brain tracking devices, is rapidly growing in availability and investment [23]. But this growth in consumer neurotechnology comes with myriads of ethical considerations that must be considered [9,19,20,23,41,42]. Hence, neuroethics is a field that refers to a broad range of ethical, legal and social issues that have emerged through progress in neuroscience [13].…”

“…Along a similar note, Ienca and Andorno [19] discuss how the development of consumer neurotechnology requires the emergence of new human rights, or at least the expansion of already established rights in order to address the emerging challenges of neurotechnology development. Indeed, Ienca et al [20] included human rights as one of four identified areas that require proactive governance to ensure safe and responsible use of brain data outside of a medical domain, stating that brain data protection needs to be embedded into human rights in order to be included in the international normative framework. Binding regulation, where brain data is given its own category for mandatory data protection was another identified area for regulation.…”

“…With the expected introduction of objective mental workload trackers that have the potential of providing several benefits to personal lives and work performance, this paper focusses on this neurotechnology; addressing ethical considerations at a relatively nascent stage of development is an aim in neuroethics [17]. It should be noted that focussing on one type of neurotechnology in this study was necessary to provide participants with lived experiences, but the recommendations provided by Kreitmair [23], the IBC Report [41], and Ienca et al [20] described above refer to a range of neurotechnologies, and thus the findings of the current research will undoubtedly be applicable beyond the technology discussed.…”

“…But with this potential new way of living, there is huge potential for unintended consequences for this technology. The ethical side of neurotechnology should remain of the utmost importance when it comes to progress in its developments [9,20,23,41,42]. Whilst ethical issues and guidelines have been outlined (and is a current and active area of discussion in the community) for the development and production of neurotechnology [16,20,23,41] , we wished to explore the ethical concerns and perceptions held by potential consumers.…”