Simon Sharwood reports:
Researchers from MIT Media Lab and the Technical University of Denmark have raised the issue of “Privacy for Personal Neuroinformatics”, a field they feel deserves attention because brainwave data is starting to go public.
The four writers’ paper on the idea points out that electroencephalography (EEG) has been around for ages and records brain activity using electrodes. Patients generally consent to EEG data being captured, often because it’s a useful diagnostic tool. But EEG data can also be used to “diagnose mental diseases, and traces of epilepsy, and decode personality traits,” the paper points out, arguing that current arrangements mean patients don’t consent to or contemplate deeper analysis. Nor can patients control the output of their minds: a test for one condition will produce data useful for other purposes.
Read more on The Register.
via @NZprivacy