California Now Protects Consumer Brain Data

California passed a law extending the state’s Consumer Privacy Act to protect the privacy of a person’s brain data collected by neurotechnology companies (i.e., pretty much everyone in Silicon Valley).

The Big Thought: Applications and technologies as diverse as mixed-reality headsets and meditation platforms can in some way record and collect the neural data of users… and there are few legal guardrails to protect that data. Without the law, targeted advertising and digital manipulation efforts could eventually reach a whole new level of personalization.

Between the Tissue: Our thoughts and feelings are now as recordable as a keystroke… so California stepped in before that data could be widely monetized.

• Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom and passed unanimously in both the State Assembly and State Senate, California now protects “neural data” (a user’s brain activity and connected nerves that send signals to the rest of the body).
• Neural data now has the same protections as facial images, DNA, fingerprints, and other biometric data — all considered “personal sensitive information.”
• That means California residents can request, delete, or correct info that has been collected and opt out from firms being able to sell or share it.

Brainstorm: Consumer neurotechnology is a pretty unregulated industry, mainly due to the tech extending from smartphones, smartwatches, and smart glasses that are already widely used. But how real is this brain data threat? Studies have already shown that thoughts and feelings can be decoded and that images of what someone saw can be reconstructed.

Now that a brain’s output is protected, we can focus on input. That’s right — we have to prepare for outlawing inception.

Go Deeper: Putting literal technology into our brains makes protecting neural data more important than ever.