Colorado bill aims to protect consumers' brain data

In a first, a Colorado law extends privacy rights to neural data increasingly coveted by technology companies.

Consumers have become accustomed to the idea of ​​their personal data, such as their email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, being collected and often resold by the applications and digital services they use.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">With the advent of mainstream neurotechnologies, the data collected is becoming more and more intimate. A headband serves as a personal meditation coach by monitoring the user's brain activity. Another claims to help treat anxiety and depression symptoms. Another reads and interprets brain signals as the user scrolls through dating apps, presumably to provide better matches. (“‘Listening to your heart’ is not enough,” the manufacturer says on its website.)

The companies behind these technologies have access to recordings of users. brain activity – the electrical signals that underlie our thoughts, feelings and intentions.

On Wednesday, Governor Jared Polis of Colorado signed a bill that, for the first time in the United States, , is trying to ensure that this data remains truly private. The new law, passed by a vote of 61-1 in the Colorado House and 34-0 in the Senate, expands the definition of "sensitive data" in the state's current privacy law to include biological data and "data neuronal" generated by the brain, spinal cord and network of nerves that relay messages throughout the body.

"All that we are is in our mind " said Jared Genser, general counsel and co-founder of the Neurorights Foundation, a scientific group that advocated for the bill's passage. "What we think and feel, and the ability to decode that from the human brain, could not be more intrusive or personal to us."

"We are really excited to see a real bill signed into law that will protect biological data and neurological disorders of people,” said Rep. Cathy Kipp, Democrat of Colorado, who introduced the bill.

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