Chile's neurorights amendment · Grey Matter

Chile's neurorights amendment is the 2021 change to the Chilean constitution, Law 21.383, that made Chile the first country to protect brain activity and the information derived from it in its constitution, and it has already been applied by its Supreme Court against a consumer neurotechnology company.

Chile's neurorights amendment. Chile's neurorights amendment is the 2021 change to the Chilean constitution, Law 21.383, that made Chile the first country to protect brain activity and the information derived from it in its constitution, and it has already been applied by its Supreme Court against a consumer neurotechnology company.

The amendment, approved unanimously by Congress and enacted in October 2021, adds to the article on the right to life and to physical and psychological integrity. It states that scientific and technological development will be at the service of people and carried out with respect for life and physical and psychological integrity, and that the law will regulate the requirements, conditions and restrictions for its use on people, protecting brain activity and the information that comes from it with particular care.

It was tested in court in 2023. In a case brought against Emotiv, a maker of consumer EEG headsets, the Supreme Court ruled in August 2023 that its data practices violated the new protection and ordered the company to delete the brain data it had collected from the plaintiff.

The court looked closely at consent. It questioned whether accepting terms in order to use a device one has bought is free consent, and held that reusing data for research needs specific consent naming the research.

The amendment points to a law still to come. A separate neuroprotection bill, which would treat neural data as sensitive and require consent for recreational neurotechnology, has been under discussion in Congress.

Chile turned mental privacy from an argument into an enforceable right.

The first ruling under it shows the right working on an ordinary consumer product, well before any mind-reading device exists.

Questions: What did Chile's Supreme Court order in the first case brought under the neurorights amendment? In August 2023 the court ruled against Emotiv, a maker of consumer EEG headsets, in a case brought by a user of its Insight device, and ordered the company to delete the brain data it had collected from him. It found the company's practices incompatible with the new constitutional protection of brain activity, questioned whether accepting terms of service to use a purchased device is free consent, and held that using data for research requires specific consent naming that research. The ruling showed the amendment applying to an ordinary consumer product, years before any device could read thoughts. What does Chile's 2021 constitutional amendment protect? Law 21.383, approved unanimously and enacted in October 2021, amended the article of Chile's constitution on the right to life and to physical and psychological integrity. It states that scientific and technological development will serve people and respect their life and physical and psychological integrity, and that the law will regulate the conditions of its use on people, with particular care to protect brain activity and the information derived from it. That made Chile the first country to give brain activity and neural data constitutional protection, the first neuroright written into a constitution.