Neuroprivacy

Neuroprivacy, or "brain privacy," is a concept which refers to the rights people have regarding the imaging, extraction and analysis of neural data from their brains. This concept is highly related to fields like neuroethics, neurosecurity, and neurolaw, and has become increasingly relevant with the development and advancement of various neuroimaging technologies. Neuroprivacy is an aspect of neuroethics specifically regarding the use of neural information in legal cases, neuromarketing, surveillance and other external purposes, as well as corresponding social and ethical implications.

Neuroethical concepts such as neuroprivacy developed initially in the 2000s, after the initial invention and development of neuroimaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalography (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). As neuroimaging became highly studied and popularized in the 1990s, it also started entering the commercial market as entrepreneurs sought to market the practical applications of neuroscience, such as neuromarketing, neuroenhancement and lie detection. Neuroprivacy consists of the privacy issues raised by both neuroscience research and applied uses of neuroimaging techniques. The relevance of neuroprivacy debate increased significantly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which led to a push for increased neuroimaging in the context of information/threat detection and surveillance.

Brain fingerprinting is a controversial and unproven EEG technique that relies on identifying the P300 event-related potential, which is correlated with recognition of some stimulus. The purpose of this technique is to determine if a person has incriminating information or memory. In its current state, brain fingerprinting is only able to determine the existence of information, and is unable to provide any specific details about that information. Its creator, Dr. Lawrence Farwell, claims brain fingerprinting is highly reliable and nearly impossible to fool, but some studies dispute its reliability and lack of countermeasures. Some possible countermeasures include thinking of something else instead of processing the real stimuli, mental suppression of recognition, or simply not cooperating with the test. There have been concerns over the potential use of memory dampening drugs such as propranolol to beat brain fingerprinting. However, some studies have shown that propranolol actually dampens the emotional arousal associated with a memory instead of the memory itself, which could even improve the recollection of the memory.

A comparable EEG technique is brain electrical oscillation signature profiling (BEOS), which is very similar to brain fingerprinting in that it detects the presence of specific information or memories. Despite a significant lack of scientific studies confirming the validity of BEOS profiling, this technique has been used in India to provide evidence for criminal investigations.

Current neuroimaging technology has been able to detect neural correlates of human attributes such as memory and morality. Neurodata can be used to diagnose and predict behavioral disorders and patterns such as psychopathy and antisocial behavior, both of which are factors in calculating likelihood of future criminal behavior. This ability to evaluate mental proficiencies, biases and faculties could be relevant to government or corporate entities for the purposes of surveillance or neuromarketing, especially if neurodata can be collected without the subjects' knowledge or consent. Using neurodata to predict future behaviors and actions could help create or inform preventive measures to treat people before problems happen; however, this raises ethical issues as to how society defines "moral" or "acceptable" behavior.

It is possible to use neuroimaging as a form of lie detection. By assuming deception requires an increase of cognitive processes to develop an alternate story, the difference in mental states between telling the truth or lying should be noticeable. However, this relies on assumptions that have yet to be conclusively determined, and as such neurological lie detection is not yet reliable or fully understood. This is in contrast to the standard polygraph, which relies on analyzing biological mechanisms that are well understood but still not necessarily reliable.

The legal systems of most countries generally do not accept neuroimaging data as permissible evidence, with some exceptions. India has allowed BEOS tests as legal evidence, and an Italian court of appeals used neuroimaging evidence in a 2009 case, being the first European court to do so. Canadian and US courts have been more cautious in permitting neuroimaging data as legal evidence. One of the reasons legal systems have been slow to adopt neuroimaging data as an accepted form of evidence is the possible error and misinterpretations that could result from such a new technology; courts in the US typically follow the Daubert standard set for evidence evaluation by the Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Supreme Court case, which established that the validity of scientific evidence must be determined by the trial judge. The Daubert standard serves as a safeguard for the reliability of scientific evidence, and requires a significant amount of testing for any neuroimaging technique to be considered for it to be considered as evidence. While brain fingerprinting was technically accepted in the Harrington v. Iowa case, the judge specifically stated that the EEG evidence was not to be presented to a jury and so the evidence did not set a significant precedent.

Neurological surveillance is relevant to governmental, corporate, academic and technological entities, as the improvement of technology increases the amount of information that can be extrapolated from neuroimaging. Surveillance with current neuroimaging technology is considered difficult, given how fMRI data is difficult to collect and interpret even in laboratory settings; fMRI studies generally require subjects to be motionless and cooperative. However, as technology improves it may be possible to overcome these requirements.