Mind reading, lie detection, and privacy

Abstract

Neuroimaging techniques can generate a variety of kinds of personal information. This chapter focuses on the potential for neuroimaging to threaten privacy by revealing mental content and discusses the scientific and ethical issues that should be considered in a neuroethical analysis of neuroimaging that may infringe on privacy. Here these considerations are illustrated with a discussion of the scientific and ethical issues that arise when trying to use neuroimaging technologies for lie detection in real-world applications. Although current methods do not significantly threaten mental privacy, it is possible that privacy rights could be infringed with further developments in neuroimaging. However, this area is highly undertheorized; more work on the foundations of the right to privacy is needed.