Colorado Bill Aims to Protect Consumer Brain Data
The law takes aim at data collected by consumer-level brain technologies, like the Muse headband pictured here. Credit... Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times
Consumers have grown accustomed to the prospect that their personal data, such as email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, are being collected and often resold by the apps and the digital services they use.
With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming ever more intimate. One headband serves as a personal meditation coach by monitoring the user’s brain activity. Another purports to help treat anxiety and symptoms of depression. Another reads and interprets brain signals while the user scrolls through dating apps, presumably to provide better matches. (“‘Listen to your heart’ is not enough,” the manufacturer says on its website.)
The companies behind such technologies have access to the records of the users’ brain activity — the electrical signals underlying our thoughts, feelings and intentions.
