The United Nations is working globally to research and gather public feedback on the use of neurotechnology, and to address the growing threat to human rights from these capabilities.
According to the U.N., “Neurotechnologies are defined for the purposes of this study, as those devices and procedures used to access, monitor, investigate, assess, manipulate and/or emulate the structure and function of the neural systems of natural persons.1 They are meant to either record signals from the brain and “translate” them into technical control commands, or to manipulate brain activity by applying electrical or optical stimuli.”2
In plain language, “Neurotechnologies” refer to devices and technologies that can interpret human thoughts, emotions, and nervous system signals, record, and manipulate and control them. While these technologies hold promise for medical and scientific advancements, they also raise ethical and privacy concerns. Any alleged human rights violations related to neurotechnology would likely involve issues of privacy, consent, bodily autonomy, and potential misuse of the technology by law enforcement or other parties.
These technologies and capabilities open the door for nefarious abuses, perverse invasiveness into privacy and dignity, and gross human rights violations—of which there are already widespread reports from throughout the United States and other developed nations. Reports include the capabilities of voice to skull or v2k to constantly engage people’s thoughts verbally, to interrogate, berate, humiliate, haze, and threaten. This coupled with mood manipulation and other control measures are being used to otherwise break people down through constant oppression and behavioral modification techniques.
Related: U.N. Questionnaire: Questionnaire Neurotechnology_EN
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To investigate, the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee of the United Nations just completed (response period ended on 7/2/2023) a global questionnaire survey to assess and study “the impact, opportunities, and challenges of neurotechnology with regard to the promotion and protection of all human rights” to be presented to the Council at its fifty-seventh session (September 2024).”3
This survey is comprised of 38 questions to gather feedback on responder awareness of their government policy and or private sector development, human rights opportunities and challenges, specific group vulnerability, national and international legal framework including data protection over mental privacy4 and personal brain data5 and, means to protect human rights.
It also contains sections for input from the private sector including medical, technical, and academic stakeholders and questions specifically for the Human Rights Council, United Nations Treaty Bodies, and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights.
In addition to this survey, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) just conducted the International Conference on the Ethics of Neurotechnology on July 13, 2023, in Paris, with the theme “Building a framework to protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms.”6
According to UNESCO, “Unlike many other frontier technologies, neurotechnology can directly access, manipulate, and emulate the structure of the brain, and with it produce information about our identities, our emotions, our fears. Combined with artificial intelligence, its resulting potential can easily become a threat to notions of human identity, human dignity, freedom of thought, autonomy, (mental) privacy and well-being.7” The UNESCO website offers links to their research and other resources.
If your own government won’t do anything to protect and preserve human rights, we should all pray the United Nations can and will.
1 OECD, “Recommendation of the Council on OECD Legal Instruments Responsible Innovation in Neurotechnology”, 2019; “Neurotechnology and Society: Strengthening Responsible Innovation in Brain Science”, OECD Policy Papers, November 2017, p. 49.
2 UNESCO, “Report of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO (IBC) on the Ethical Issues of Neurotechnology”, 2021, p.5.
3 Human Rights Council Advisory Committee Questionnaire on “Neurotechnology and Human Rights”
4 “Mental privacy” refers to the explicit protection of individuals against the unconsented intrusion by third parties into their mental information (be it inferred from their neural data or from proxi data indicative of neurological, cognitive and/or affective information) as well as against the unauthorized collection of those data. Ienca, M. and Andorno, R. “Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology”, Life Sciences, Society and Policy, Vol. 13, n. 5, 2017.
5 “Personal brain data” or “neural data” is defined as the data relating to the functioning or structure of the human brain of an identified or identifiable individual that includes unique information about their psychology, health or mental states (OECD, 2019).
6 Ethics of neurotechnology | UNESCO (accessed July 15, 2023)
7 Ethics of neurotechnology | UNESCO (accessed July 15, 2023)
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