Model division: Division 3 led APA’s Resolution on the Protection of Neural and Cognitive Data

Today, public concerns abound about the privacy of our data. Who owns it and what gets done with it? Can it be bought and sold? In what ways can AI extract patterns from our data and use these patterns for purposes ranging from highly targeted ads to customized services to categorizing us? These concerns become even more pressing when considering newly emerging wearable devices that can measure our neural and cognitive processes for use in noninvasive brain-computer interfaces. Although wearable brain-computer interfaces might seem like futuristic sci fi, this era is upon us. Already available on the market are wearables like smart headphones and smart headbands that can measure brainwaves from the scalp that are used by AI. On the horizon are smart glasses that can measure eye gaze patterns to information in the environment or to visual images presented on the glasses themselves. Decades of experimental cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience research using brain electrophysiology and eye-tracking methods have shown many ways that such data, particularly when used in conjunction with highly trained AI, could be used to extract and interpret aspects of a person’s internal mental life, including emotional reactions, intentions, where attention is focused at any given moment, whether something in the environment is recognized, and even whether one is likely on the verge of having an insight or recalling a memory. Some types of wearable devices can even carry the capacity to intervene at a neural level in an ongoing neural process to change the person’s cognitive outcome (through neural stimulation from the scalp). While these capabilities present the capacity for remarkable advancement for humanity, such as for human cognitive enhancement, they carry significant risks that call for unique protections. Whereas protections already exist for the collection of (and intervention in) cognitive and neural data in research and in clinical settings, no such protections yet exist for everyday wearable commercial devices that might collect and use (and even intervene in) these types of data. This is why Division 3: Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science led the effort within APA to devise a resolution aimed at developing and pursuing guidelines on the protection of such data. Read the resolution.