The Right to Cognitive Liberty Is Already Recognized by the Declaration of Human Rights

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I love the idea of an app that would just separately collect the brainwave data from two people and let you know ahead of time whether you're compatible like that's probably actually much more accurate than the little surveys you do on okay Cupid or whatever maybe. I don't think we have an answer yet on what a neural match looks like but we interesting to sayOkay I had to ask that was just a fun little diversion but I guess the capstone here is okay we would like to be entirely on board with your program of enshrining some kind of privacy rights to your thoughts. It should be our consent to give these away rather than just being forced by pressure by jobs by economic pressure to

Every time our brain does some thinking, there are associated physical processes. In particular, electric currents and charged particles jump between neurons, creating associated electromagnetic fields. These fields can in principle be detected with proper technology, opening the possibility for reading your mind. That technology is currently primitive, but rapidly advancing, and it's not too early to start thinking about legal and ethical consequences when governments and corporations have access to your thoughts. Nita Farahany is a law professor and bioethicist who discusses these issues in her new book, The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology.

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Nita Farahany received a J.D. and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Duke University. She is currently the Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke, as well as Founding Director of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. She has served on a number of government commissions, including the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is a Fellow of the American Law Institute and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was awarded the Duke Law School Distinguished Teaching Award.

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