Issue Governing neurodata: protection, anti-manipulation and cognitive identity before capabilities outrun rules

Summary

The report sees the regulatory debate on neurodata converging around three ideas. They are protecting neurodata as sensitive information, preventing its use to manipulate decisions, and ensuring that no one can alter another person's cognitive identity without consent. Because neurotechnology can observe and intervene at the same time, it poses unprecedented challenges for individual autonomy, technology governance and fundamental rights. With Chile, some US states, China and the EU responding differently and no global convergence of standards yet, the ability to shape how the technology is regulated is also a matter of strategic positioning. Personal data protection took years to mature before crystallising in frameworks such as Europe's GDPR, now an international reference. For neurodata, the report argues, the task is to get ahead by building governance mechanisms before technological capabilities spread faster than the rules meant to govern them.