Brain Computer Interfaces and Human Rights: Brave new rights for a brave new world

Abstract

Digital health applications include a wide range of wearable, implantable, injectable and ingestible digital medical devices. Many of these devices use machine learning algorithms to assist medical prognosis and decision-making. One of the most compelling digital medical device developments is brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) which entails the connecting of a person's brain to a computer, or to another device outside the human body. BCIs allow bidirectional communication and control between the human brain and the outside world by exporting brain data or altering brain activity. Although being marveled at for its clinical promises, this technological advancement also raises novel ethical, legal, social and technical implications (ELSTI). Debates in this regard centers around patient autonomy, equity, trustworthiness in healthcare, data protection and security, risks of dehumanization, the limitations of machine learning-based decision-making, and the influence that BCIs have on what it means to be human and human rights. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) after World War II, the landscape that give rise to these human rights has evolved enormously. Human life and humans' role in society are being transformed and threatened by technologies that were never imagined at the time the UDHR was adopted. BCIs, in particular, harbor the greatest possibility of social and individual disruption through its capability to record, interpret, manipulate, or alter brain activity that may potentially alter what it means to be human and how we control humans in future. Cutting edge technological innovations that increasingly blur the lines between human and computer beg the rethinking and extension of existing human rights to remain relevant in a digitized world. In this paper sui generis human rights such as mental privacy, the right to identity or self, agency or free will and fair access to cognitive augmentation will be discussed and how a regulatory framework must be adapted to act as technology enablers, whilst ensuring fairness, accountability, and transparency in sociotechnical systems.