Brain-Computer Interface 5.0: Potential Threats, Computational Law and Protection of Digital Rights
Abstract
The development of neurotechnologies is now at a critical point where direct readout and modulation of brain activity has passed from test studies to business applications, only to urgently require adequate legal and technological guarantees. The relevance of this study is prompted by the rapid development of the fifth generation brain-computer interface (BCI 5.0), a technology that provides unprecedented potential of direct access to neural processes while at the same time creating principally new threats to digital rights of individuals. The existing legal mechanisms have turned out to be inadequate for regulating altogether new risks of manipulating consciousness, unauthorized access to neural data and compromised cognitive autonomy. The study is focused on legal and technological mechanisms for protection of digital rights in the context of introducing the fifth generation neural interface technologies including analysis of regulatory gaps, technical vulnerabilities and possible security guarantees. Methodologically, the study is based on the multidisciplinary approach bringing together neuroscience, law and information technology, and on the comparative analysis of regulatory framework and inductive inference of specific regulatory mechanisms. The main hypothesis is: legacy regulatory mechanisms for data protection in biometric and telecommunication technologies are structurally inadequate for BCI 5.0 while digital rights could be protected only by a hybrid system combining special provisions with technological guarantees via mechanisms of computational law. The author puts forward a minimum set of viable security and confidentiality standards, comprehensive cryptography and blockchain-based applications, as well as detailed legislative advice for ethical and safe neurotechnological development with secure guarantees of fundamental human rights in the digital age. Findings of the study are of considerable practical value for legislators, those involved in the development of neurotechnologies, regulatory bodies and advocacy organizations by proposing specific evidence-based tools and mechanisms to strike an effective balance between the innovative development and the imperatives of protecting human dignity, mental autonomy and cognitive freedom.
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