Right to Mental Opacity

Definition

Right to Mental Opacity examines a protected ability not to reveal or have inferred inner 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 a protected ability not to reveal or have inferred inner 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 a protected ability not to reveal or have inferred inner 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 right to mental opacity, 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 Right to Mental Opacity

Stakeholders and beneficiaries

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