Who Owns Your Brain Data?
Reason magazine|June 2023
WE ARE RAPIDLY heading toward a world of brain transparency, in which scientists, doctors, governments, and companies may peer into our brains and minds at will,” Duke University bioethicist Nita A. Farahany declares in The Battle for Your Brain. As a defense against this neuro surveillance, her timely book argues for a right to cognitive liberty that includes “mental privacy, freedom of thought, and self-determination”—a right that allows us to track and hack our own brains but bars us from trespassing on other minds.
RONALD BAILEY
Who Owns Your Brain Data?

We face a choice, Farahany suggests: We can have a comprehensive surveillance-and-control dystopia or a world where individuals can choose to use devices and drugs that help them “work and learn smarter and faster, cure us of addiction and depression, and maybe even alleviate human suffering.”

On the surveillance side, the Chinese state electric grid company is already requiring tens of thousands of its workers to wear Entertech helmets embedded with brainwave-measuring sensors to detect fatigue and other mental states. Such electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring technology also has been developed by the Australian company SmartCap. It is used by more than 5,000 consumers around the world, including mining and trucking companies, to detect employee fatigue on the job. The San Francisco–based company Emotiv has developed EEG earbuds that can detect when an employee’s focus on a task is flagging and suggest that he take a break.

Farahany describes a scenario in which a boss calls an employee wearing Emotiv earbuds to discuss a contract renewal with a 2 percent raise. Although the company would be willing to increase the employee’s pay up to 10 percent to keep her, the earbuds detect that she is happy with the proposed raise. Any salary negotiation would essentially be over before it begins. “Even the staunchest freedom-of-contract libertarian,” Farahany argues, “would question the fairness of this negotiation.”

This story is from the June 2023 edition of Reason magazine.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the June 2023 edition of Reason magazine.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM REASON MAGAZINEView All
AI Is Coming for Hollywood's Jobs
Reason magazine

AI Is Coming for Hollywood's Jobs

But so is everyone else.

time-read
10+ mins  |
June 2024
AI Can Do Paperwork Doctors Hate
Reason magazine

AI Can Do Paperwork Doctors Hate

With help from AI, doctors can focus on patients.

time-read
4 mins  |
June 2024
Antitrust May Smother the Power of AI
Reason magazine

Antitrust May Smother the Power of AI

Left alone, AI could actually help small firms compete with tech giants.

time-read
3 mins  |
June 2024
A Brief, Biased History of the Culture Wars
Reason magazine

A Brief, Biased History of the Culture Wars

THE FIRST PAR AGR APH of the book jacket lays it out: “There is a common belief that we live in unprecedented times, that people are too sensitive today, that nobody objected to the actions of actors, comedians, and filmmakers in the past.

time-read
5 mins  |
July 2024
FAMILIES NEED A VIBE SHIFT
Reason magazine

FAMILIES NEED A VIBE SHIFT

THE AUTHORS OF FOUR NEW BOOKSWITH 24 KIDS BETWEEN THEM-SAY THE AMERICAN FAMILY NEEDS A COURSE CORRECTION.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2024
"The Past Is There To Teach Us What Can Happen'
Reason magazine

"The Past Is There To Teach Us What Can Happen'

Hardcore History's Dan Carlin on hero worship and moral assumptions in the study of the past

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2024
Cutting Off Israel
Reason magazine

Cutting Off Israel

ENDING U.S. AID WOULD GIVE WASHINGTON LESS LEVERAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THAT’S WHY IT’S WORTH DOING.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2024
WHAT CAUSED THE D.C.CRIME WAVE?
Reason magazine

WHAT CAUSED THE D.C.CRIME WAVE?

GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT, NOT SENTENCING REFORM OR SPARSE SOCIAL SPENDING, DESERVES THE BLAME.

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2024
GIMME SHELTER
Reason magazine

GIMME SHELTER

THE U.S. CONFRONTS A GROWING HOMELESSNESS PROBLEM. DOES MIAMI HAVE THE ANSWER?

time-read
10+ mins  |
July 2024
States Turn Their Backs on Criminal Justice Reform
Reason magazine

States Turn Their Backs on Criminal Justice Reform

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to avoid the “strange bedfellows” cliché when reading about the criminal justice reform movement in the 2010s.

time-read
5 mins  |
July 2024