Mental State Privacy

Definition

Mental State Privacy examines protection of inferred attention, emotion, intention, fatigue and other mental states within the broader domain of the privacy, ownership, inference, retention and protection of neural and mental-state data.

Why this matters

Failures concerning protection of inferred attention, emotion, intention, fatigue and other mental states can cause physical or psychological harm, loss of function, privacy invasion, identity compromise, exclusion, coercion or irreversible impact on human agency.

Research questions

Under which conditions can protection of inferred attention, emotion, intention, fatigue and other mental states be delivered, measured or protected reliably, and how do outcomes vary by person, device, duration, context and governance controls?

Hypotheses

A transparent, safety-bounded and person-centred approach to mental state privacy, combining validated measurement, informed consent, privacy and security controls, human oversight and longitudinal monitoring, will improve benefit–risk outcomes compared with opaque or technology-centred approaches.

Proposed methods

privacy threat modelling; neural inference testing; consent comprehension studies; data-flow mapping; security assessment; policy analysis; user-rights evaluation; expert and affected-user review; reproducibility testing; methods adapted specifically to Mental State Privacy

Stakeholders and beneficiaries

neurotechnology users; patients; researchers; clinicians; privacy regulators; device manufacturers; employers; insurers; civil society