Signal Neurodata law: Chile's constitution, Colorado and California, the EU AI Act and Cantabria's 2025 draft

Summary

The report describes the push to protect neurodata as global but uneven. Chile was the pioneer, recognising specific protections at constitutional level. In the United States regulation is driven mainly by the states, with Colorado and California treating neurodata as sensitive biological information, while federal governance remains largely voluntary. China develops neurotechnology under a strategy that combines civilian and military applications. Europe's debate has leaned less toward creating new rights and more toward adapting existing data protection, AI and fundamental rights frameworks, and the AI Act already bans emotion recognition in workplaces and subliminal manipulation. Spain's 2021 Charter of Digital Rights was among the first European institutional texts to address cognitive freedom, and in 2025 Cantabria presented Europe's first draft law giving explicit legal protection to neurodata.