Neuro Rights

We often wonder whether Psychology and  Neurology are same. The differentiation is also relevant as we travel from Privacy Rights to Neuro Rights.

The Current Privacy laws have touched the protection of Psychological manipulation of an individual for recognizing infringement of Privacy rights. The Indian data protection law (PDPB2019/DPA2021), lists “psychological manipulation which impairs the autonomy of the individual” as 0ne of the harms that lead to infringement of Privacy Rights.

As distinguished from this “Psychological manipulation” there could be “Neurological Manipulation” which will be part of the protection of neuro rights. For this purpose it is essential to distinguish Psychology from Neurology.

Neurology is a branch of medicine and devotes its attention to assessment and treatment of diseases of the nervous system. When a computer system is connected to the nervous system in such a manner as to read the nerve signals that transmit between the human central nervous system and the human body parts such as the muscles and organs, and perhaps manipulate the signals, we are dealing with a possible infringement of neuro rights of a person.

On the other hand, Psychology is a scientific study of the mind, behaviour and emotions of a person. When a computer system or information is used to alter the behaviour of a person or his emotions, or decisions, we can say that his privacy is being infringed.

The behaviour of a person is a reflection of the activity of neurons in his body. Hence psychological infringement can be caused by neurological infringement. Hence the two concepts of “Psychological intervention” and “Neurological intervention” are related.

If we take the example of a “Optical illusion”, the illusion leads the human to perceive an object different from what it truly is. But what something “Truly” is may itself be an illusion of a large number of persons.

When doctors use “Anaesthesia” they are only cheating the neural system to believe that there is no pain or sensation. Hence that person/part of the person which is anaesthetised is unable to feel the heat, cold or pain though the object he touches may really hot as per the accepted standards. This is a neurological intervention.

On the other hand, if a person is “hypnotized” and through hypnotic suggestions is made to believe that the object is not hot or he does not feel the pain, he may actually donot recognize the heat or pain. In this case, the psychological manipulation is so strong that it induces the neurological changes which otherwise may directly be achieved by an anaesthesia.

This example shows that neurological changes can be brought in by psychological suggestions provided the suggestions are strong enough. This phenomenon has been proved in the “Hypnotic state” where the sub conscious mind of a person is being spoken to by the hypnotist.

In the normal conscious state, the human mind works under its legacy memory and the pre-programmed active nervous system and hence it will feel the heat or pain despite oral suggestions from others. Perhaps some of the “Cult Leaders” have the capability of hypnotic control on persons who appear to be fully awake and in such persons the belief system is strong enough to take them to a hypnotic trance if the cult leader speaks to them.

Thus we can conclude that psychological manipulations can be converted into neurological manipulations and vice versa.

When we try to regulate “Privacy Rights” therefore we need to understand that at the peripheral level, the regulations affect “Privacy” in the “Psychological Domain”. When we try to dive deeper, we come to the neurological domain and need to look at neuro rights.

To explain this two levels that separate the Privacy rights and Neuro Rights, we can take the example of  Data which exists in multiple states.

For example let us take identified personal data and anonymised personal data. One law may address identified personal data and another may address anonymised personal data. There is a layer of separation between identified personal data and anonymised personal data which is the anonymisation technology. If this technology is weak, we can say that there is no difference between anonymised data and identified data and privacy can be infringed if either of the data is available in wrong hands. In that case we need one law to take care of privacy infringement of both identified and anonymised data.

But if  technology is “reasonably” strong, it is possible to keep the two regulations separate.

Similar argument can be made on “Un encrypted and Encrypted Data”. If the encryption is strong, there can be one law for unencrypted law and another for Encrypted data”. Otherwise we need a common law.

When there is a reasonably strong security that separates one set of objects and the other and law is made differently with the confidence that conversion one set of object to the other is technically infeasible, then forced conversion should be considered as a “Malicious activity or a Crime”.

Indian data protection law has done this by a specific provision in PDPB 2019/DPA 2021 which criminalizes re-identification of de-identified information without authority. (also applies to de-anonymisation of anonymised data).

Similarly, when we consider a legal provision for Neuro rights different from Privacy Rights,  we need to place a strong barrier in between what is considered as the psychological domain and the Neurological domain.

This will be one of the biggest challenges in conceptualizing the Neuro Rights law and defining its applicability.

In the Data Protection laws, we define applicability from  “Presence of a processing company in a given jurisdiction” and “Data being collected from within the jurisdiction”  as well as “data related to doing business from a different country or profiling the persons in one country from another country”.

If we use this analogy, we can define psychological intervention in such a manner that it extends to direct or indirect neurological interventions or vice versa.

This is an area for debate by the law makers.

To summarize, here we have discussed the presence of two concepts namely “Psychology” and “Neurology” from the Personal data and Neuro data perspectives and how they may be inter related.

(Debate will continue…)

Naavi

(P.S: Naavi as a student of neuro rights is exploring parts of neuro science from the perspective of a Neuro data perspective. There could be errors and mis-conceptions in the information presented here. Request knowledgeable persons to point out mistakes and present different perspectives. The Objective of this site is to learn together. Pictures and information in this article have been sourced from Queensland Brain Institute and other sources…. Naavi)

In understanding the brain functions from the Neuro Rights perspective, we need to understand how neuro data is generated, stored and transmitted.

Neuro data generation is a electro chemical process like the functioning of a battery. Accordingly, neuro perceptions cause certain chemical changes that accumulate positive and negative electric charges in a neuro space which when exceeding a certain level triggers transmission of the signal from one neuron to another.

The “Memory” is a function where the brain retains certain information and is able to recall it later. The data input to the brain is from the sensory organizations. Data Output is mainly to the different motor organizations. If therefore there is a heat sensation, brain may instruct the relevant muscles to move the body away from the heat.

However human brain experiences some “Thoughts” which could be a recall from the memory storage which may not result in any motor functions and simply revolve inside the brain as thoughts.

There is therefore space inside the brain which store memory and maintain a temporary space for churning the memory until they are triggered into actionable instructions to the body parts.

Neuro scientists  have proved that different types of memory are stored in the human brain in different parts. Accordingly scientific names are allocated for different parts of the brain where memory is stored.

They are Hippocampus, Amygdala, Cerebellum, Basal ganglia, Neocortex and Prefrontal cortex.

The functions and purposes of each of these memory storage parts of the brain are different.

Explicit memory is stored in hippocamus, neocortex and amygdala. Implicit memory is stored in basal ganglia and cerebellum.

Prefrontal cortex plays a central role in cognitive control functions.

In order to understand the functions of the different memory storage parts of the brain, we need to categorize the memory  into different types.

At the first level we can segregate memory into “Short Term” and “Long Term”.  Short Term memory may exist for very short time like when you read your OTP on the SMS and then type it in another place.

Long Term memory is either “Explicit” or “Implicit”. What wee mean by “Explicit” memory is the “Episodic” memory which are out experiences of events that have been sensed by our sensory organizations in the past and the “Semantic” memory which are knowledge of the world acquired without specific self experience. Implicit memory includes the sub conscious. Part of the sub conscious memory is driving motor capabilities of different organs. Even our speech consists of memory of our lips and tongue to produce certain sounds. These are automatic replay of past learning. Some times there is a sub conscious association of different memory units and that is referred to as “Priming”. For example, in the Pavlov experiment, when the dog hears the sound of the bell, it salivates as an associated response because the association is stored in the memory.

These storage concepts still donot fully explain the “Thought Processing Area” of the brain where even a person under meditation will be churning his thoughts until a spark of actionable idea is generated and gets into the memory. In the dream state, this “Thought area” is active and after the person wakes up, except for the strongest of the strong dreams, rest of the dream memory is lost. This indicates that the dreams may occur in the temporary memory space.

Whether this temporary memory space itself may be considered as the “Thought Space” is a point to be debated. If “Thinking” is part of the “Cognitive function”, then the pre frontal cortex may be the space where the thoughts are processed.

The reason why we need to explore the “Thought Space” further is that like in a Computer where we have the data in storage and data in transmission, there is a “Data in processing” concept for which we need to find the equivalent in the human brain.

If we understand this concept, we may also be able to unravel some of the philosophical thoughts on what is “Buddhi” and “Viveka”.

“Intelligence” and “Consciousness” are also terms which need to be understood and related to both the modern neuro science concepts and the philosophical concepts.

(….Exploration to be continued)

Naavi

PS: This article dated April 14, 2017 is reproduced from www.naavi.org

The recent Cyber fraud in Mumbai where an elderly (72 year old)  woman was duped to the extent of Rs 42 lakhs in a Nigerian Scam (Refer here) open up a discussion on how it that  seemingly intelligent people fall for this old trick of fraudsters. We often dismiss such frauds as a result of “Greed” where the victim wanted to get rich overnight and fell to a trap. It is true that some of the Nigerian frauds are induced by the greed of the victim. But there could be other reasons as well for which some people seem to get carried away by the various promises made by their online friend and behave as if they are “hypnotized”.

It is not only this case where there is no reason for a 72 year old lady with Rs 42 lakhs in her Bank account should feel greedy and lose her life time savings. There have been similar cases where elderly persons and young kids have fallen for the sweet talk of fraudsters on the facebook or chat apps.

In all these cases, if we look beyond the motive of greed, it appears that the victim was led to behave in a particular manner which appears irrational for many of us exactly in a manner a “hypnotized” person behaves with a post hypnotic suggestion.

We need to analyse these cases scientifically to understand if there exists a phenomenon of “Cyber Hypnotism” where a person can induce hypnosis through written words, implant suggestions and make the  subject behave differently under post hypnotic state.

Hypnosis itself is a very interesting phenomenon and this age old art perhaps is still not fully understood though there  could be several theories to explain the phenomenon.

One easy to understand explanation of hypnotism is that the human brain consists of a conscious part which we interact with the surroundings on a day to day basis but beneath this conscious part seems to exist a “Sub Conscious mind” which can come to the fore during a hypnotized state of mind.

This sub-conscious mind is a store house of every one of our experiences though it is not available for recall by our sensory organs and conscious memory.  In a way it is like our computer where files are stored in a “hidden” storage space and are not accessible by our operating systems and hence are invisible. But if we can use a suitable software to  “undelete a deleted file” or “discover the hidden files”, we may suddenly realize that there are many files which we ourselves have created and saved may be as earlier versions of currently used files and later on over written with other versions.

In the case of human mind, the storage space available is very large compared to what we normally use and hence the “Sub Conscious Memory” holds a very large volume of data that has a “Photographic memory recording” of every one of our past experiences through our sensory organs.

A hypnotist finds a way to put the conscious mind to sleep and awaken the subconscious mind to make the subject remember long forgotten experiences. A therapist uses this to discover reasons for unexplained attitudes and behavioural pattern of individuals and through hypnotic suggestions during the state of hypnosis alter the attitude and behaviour in the post hypnotic state even though the subject is no longer in a “trance”.

It is however a part of theory that the post hypnotic suggestions may be resisted by the subject if it goes against fundamental beliefs of the person and hence cannot be used to make the person do “Criminal Acts”. According to this theory, there are some basic beliefs which a person has got embedded in his mind which cannot be wished away even under the hypnotic state by the hypnotist. But if the hypnotist is clever and makes a person believe that a post hypnotic state is not actually against the basic tenets but in support of it, then the post hypntic state may work. This explains the growth of ISIS type of terrorism in the world and also some of the schizophrenic personalities built through self suggestions.

The post hypnotic suggestions which are harmful are like “Trojans” implanted in the minds of persons which lie low under normal circumstances but make the person behave differently when certain circumstances converge.

This is a state of mind that is created in some persons who exhibit the propensity to fall to the “Social Engineering” of  online fraudsters. As a society, we need to fight against not only such fraudsters but also the susceptible potential victims. It is like preventing the “Addiction” to undesirable habits.

Normally, the hypnotist induces a hypnotic state of mind in a willing subject by making him relax and then speaking to him in a relaxed state of mind, through spoken words the subject is made to slip gradually from a conscious state to a sub conscious state. In some cases it is as simple as telling the subject that “You are now completely relaxed….your eyes are feeling heavy…when I count 5 you will go into deep sleep…etc”. For many this appears like magic particularly when some suggestions are also implanted during this “Inducement stage” as to the subject partially waking up and working under a trance and also waking up completely to come out of the trance. For example when the subject opens his eyes and is still in a trance, a mere statement of “Sleep” may quickly take him back to hypnotic state while a suggestion that after a count down from 5, he will be wide awake brings him out of trance.

What we understand from this phenomenon is that there is a way to take a person from his conscious state to a subconscious state by talking through intelligently. There is no reason to think that this can only be done through spoken words, or through dangling a pendulum or darkening the surroundings etc. These are all methods to ensure that there are no distractions and similar effect is automatically present in the case of most lonely individuals working in the social media  I donot rule out the use of psychedelic images to induce hypnotic state of mind in some cases. Perhaps “Voice Messages” and “Video Messages” can also be used to induce Cyber hypnotism in the same way that hypnotists do in the physical world.

If a person is staring into the Computer monitor and is chatting for a period of time, he is so involved in the conversation that he could slip into a state of pre-hypnotic inducement. If the other person is considered trustworthy and he starts making some suggestions, the subject may start getting into a trance like state of mind letting himself to be “Cyber Hypnotized”. Some games including the “Secondlife.com” kind of situations may take the visitor into a fantasy world where there could be interactions with malicious characters who can “brainwash” the victims into a hypnotic state.  The rest follows as per the normal principle of hypnosis where the subject trusts the hypnotizer and executes his commands in the post hypnotic state later. This in the case of the Nigerian frauds could be going into the Bank and sending out payments or even sharing the Banking credentials online.

Now, how do we prevent our lonely elders and young kids from being so Cyber hypnotized?

The first step is to create a “Self Awareness” in an individual that he is susceptible to “hypnosis” through “Cyber talk”. When a person receives an SMS message ..”Are you feeling lonely? … Can we chat?, the lonely elder male or female should realize this is not a “Friendly therapist” talking to him but a potential fraudster. The best thing is not to test out of curiocity and avoid responding to such messages .

People should think of binding themselves with the “Ulysses Contracts” (Research on finding out what is Ulysses contract and how to use it to avoid irrational and impulsive decisions). The technique has been successfully used in the Finance world as well as Medical world to avoid irrational decisions by subjects. This works well for adults… in the present case the elderly people who feel lonely, who feel aggrieved that they have been neglected by the society and seek alternate remedies on the social media to find company. This is nothing different from being addicted to smoking, drinking or drugs though it is fashionable to say that I am old but I have active facebook profile with many many friends and likes.

We often think Kids are difficult to handle the same way like adults. But the same techniques that work on the adults may also work on those kids who are likely to fall prey to the online inducement of pedophiles or fraudsters since most of the time they also suffer from the psychological state of personal neglect and isolation from busy parents and feel that they are no longer kids and “Know all”. In this state of mind they behave with the confidence that they are adults mentally though they may not be so physically.

Hence, an awareness campaign on”Don’t get Cyber hypnotized” amongst the school kids can be the first step in combating this addiction.

Second precaution that people should adopt is to break away from the computer or mobile screen from time to time to ensure that they are not in a trance. This could be also good for the eyes of the Computer user.

Can this be done with an App that is an add on to social media that “Pops out” at periodical intervals to interrupt a computer user on Facebook or Twitter or other social media to talk to the user and wake him up from a half hypnotic state if he has slipped himself into?.

Yes, this could be annoying for serious Computer users but I am suggesting this only when a person is on social media.

In fact advertisers may grin and be happy with my suggestion that their annoying pop up full screen ads also have a positive purpose!

Probably the Fitness Bands of tomorrow should be programmed to throw up such ads just the way some Car manufacturers are thinking of waking up persons who tend to sleep while driving.

Beyond these three measures of….

“Creating Awareness on Cyber hypnotism”,

“Motivating people to adopt Ulysses Contracts to avoid irrational cyber induced decisions” and

“Forced breaks with pop up ads with relevant reminder messages”,

the need to make these vulnerable sections of the society feel that they are not alone and are wanted by their family members and friends in the real society is also essential.

This is the toughest part in our society since every youngster feels that he is too busy with his work and hence has no time for socialization with his elders or kids at home.

Hopefully we start thinking in this direction and each one of us may find our own solution that helps to combat malicious use of  “Cyber Hypnotism”.

Naavi

[P.S: Author has been an interested student of hypnotism since 1971 and also holds a basic level certificate in hypnotism…. just for knowledge enhancement and not for practice.]

While we discuss the need for Neuro Rights Protection, and recognize the need when there is a direct intervention of an external computer system to the  human nervous systems, the current laws of privacy do throw open certain concerns where the human behaviour is unfairly (or without proper transparency) manipulated by the use of technology by E Commerce entities.

The marketing activities which are guided by the AIDAS principle (Awareness, Interest Desire, Availability  and Satisfaction) start with “Market Segmentation” which is segregation of potential customers based on their profiling in terms of identifying an effective communication channel for the marketing messages. The actual marketing messages conveyed either through mass advertising or targeted communication or PR are designed to exploit the knowledge of the profiling of the audience and sending them appropriate messages.

We may go to any length to criticise the Cambridge  Analytica issue but in the end the  problem is political that Cambridge Analytica helped Donald Trump to win. The criticisms are not sustainable on the principles of marketing that has been practiced for decades and involve, profiling of audience through market research, segmenting them based on filtering of the profiling and designing the right communication for each segment to achieve the desired communication goal.

Now researchers have also been working on what they call “Dark Patterns” where the activities of multiple digital platforms are aggregated to arrive at the required profiling and communication effectiveness.

Privacy Activists may live in deniability, may criticise the unfairness of say India Today, NDTV, or ESPN Crickinfo  which manipulated the image of the Chess prodigy Pragyaananda to remove the vibhuti on his forehead so that he does not look a Hindu.

(P.S: It is said that Mr Pragyaananda always presents himself with the Vibhuti mark as is evidenced by his many other photos and hence the one published by some media vehicles is suspected to have been manipulated).

But it  is a fact that Internet uses profiling, modification of facts to a great extent to achieve their marketing goals.

What we are also observing now are the “Dark Patterns” which are design interfaces or features that subtly manipulate people in making sub optimal decisions. In fact the marketing managers are paid only to increase the marketing effectiveness under the given genuine product benefits.

I refer to a research article published recently on Cambridge.org which discusses the phenomenon of “Dark Patterns” where multiple internet communication points collaborate to make the user change his purchasing desire.

Limited-quantity scarcity messages and others like these (e.g., countdown timer, confirmshaming, hidden subscriptions, etc.) are common ‘dark patterns’ found on online retail stores, generally with the goal to induce impulse buying.

Coined by Brignull (Reference Brignull2010), dark patterns are subtle design features embedded in websites that prey on human psychology to steer consumers into making decisions that, if fully informed or under optimal conditions, they might not make.

From a behavioral science perspective, dark patterns are designed to prompt consumers to evoke System 1 thinking rather than a more deliberate and thoughtful System 2 thinking by exploiting cognitive biases like scarcity bias or social proof (Stanovich & West, Reference Stanovich and West2000; Kahneman, Reference Kahneman2011). Central to the motivation as to why online vendors incorporate dark patterns is the attendant impact on impulse buying.

There is a similarity between these techniques and many devices used in Meta Verse. Take for example a simple device like a coloured glass we wear to cheat our eyes of the perception of colours. This is an external device that manipulates the human system and is actually a neuro technology of one kind which is already present within us.

Do our current laws handle such devices and their impact?… is a question we need to ask ourselves.

Coming to the world closer to neuro science, let us look at “Anaesthesia”  which is a system that numbs the nerves either at a local part of the body or in General. Is it a “Neuro Intervention Technique”? and is it covered under the current laws?…. is another question we need to ask ourselves.

These questions indicate that the developments of Neuro rights is a seamless extension of the current privacy concerns though we speak as if it is different.

Probably Neuro Rights has many more nuances to be dealt with and it would be better to consider it as a separate law but it cannot be denied that the principles of neuro rights are already embedded  in the current privacy laws.

We have a similar situation today where Information Technology Act 2000/8 already has provisions which in principle address the Privacy concerns but we still argue that without a separate law on privacy, there is no legal protection. It was strange that the honourable Supreme Court which gave its judgement in the K S Puttaswamy case did not even make a reference that there are laws such as Information Technology Act 2000/8 which perhaps is inadequate and need to be fortified with a new law. Even the Justice Srikrishna Committee did not give a suitable recognition that there already exists a law on privacy in India which may be inadequate and need re-inforcement.

Similarly, most of the professionals would fail to recognize that DPA 2021 has many provisions which can be conveniently extended to protection of Neuro rights though some conceptional clarity may be provided by a separate law taking cognizance of the interplay of neuro science, philosophy with technology and law while discussing Neuro rights.

Let us explore this further in our journey..

Naavi

In order to understand the need for a regulation termed the “Neuro Rights” which is more than the “Privacy Rights” as we understand today, it is necessary for us to have an understanding of what are the technological developments that are affecting the discussions.

In this context we can recall that there are already many medical implants which stay inside a human body and try to modify some bodily functions.  Some of them are simple devices such as the “Eversense CGM system” which has recently been approved by FDA which is a chip implanted under the skin and measures the glucose levels upto 90 days. The information is sent to a mobile device and alerts the users for high or low sugar levels. This is an enhancement of the watches that monitor the blood flow in the wrists. The FDA has considered harms such as allergic reaction, skin discoloration etc and also factored in the possibility of inaccuracy of the measurement. In an advanced device of Continuous Glucose monitoring, an insulin pump may be set up to deliver small doses of insulin through an infusion set.

In Deep Brain Stimulation, the technology interacts with the neural functioning by receiving, interpreting signals which are processed otherwise by the neurons in the body. When such signals are transmitted to the Central Nervous System, (CNS) it makes the brain or the spinal cord to send instructions to the body elements for some action. These are induced actions which are artificial. Similarly the signals emanating from the CNS may be captured and sent to external devices such as a robotic arm and make the device respond to the thoughts of the CNS.

The transmission of neural signals is an electric impulse and it is caused by certain chemical composition changes in the Neuron Cell body or in the inter-neuron synaptic area.  These chemical composition changes the number of positive ions or negative ions and determines the polarization or depolarization of a cell (build up of positive or negative charges). When the voltage potential crosses a threshold, the signal becomes strong enough to travel to the end of the neuron and connect the signal to the next neuron.

Deep Brain Stimulation tries to alter these transmissions and thereby affect the neuron activity.

As a definition, we can say that

“Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical procedure involving the placement of a medical device (called a neurostimulator), which sends electrical impulses, through implanted electrodes, to specific targets in the brain (the brain nucleus) “

When the impulses are targeted at the body parts or external device  like robotic arms, the DBS works as an outward signal manipulation.

DBS may be useful in treating many types of mental disorders including Parkinson’s decease. But the ability to convert internal thoughts into external machine actions or cheat the brain with a feed from outside the trusted in-nervous system, (signals from the body sensory organs into the CNS) is a concern which can be called a “harm” in the human rights context.

The Objective of Neurorights legislation is to regulate the misuse of the systems that can interact with the neural system in general which includes the DBS technology as well as the non invasive technologies where electrodes outside the body can alter the signals transmitting into and out of the CNS.

Currently many anaesthetic functions work on the principle of numbing the nerves so that the pain is not communicated to the brain by that part where a procedure is conducted which should normally cause pain. In whole body anaesthesia (General Anaesthesia) the entire brain function is put on a hold while the body may be cut open and surgical operations are conducted for hours.

Are these medical procedures also part of “Interference with the Brain functions”? and should they be brought under the Neuro Rights legislation? is one point which needs further academic debate.

Naavi

Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are both individuals who are targeting the future for their  business expansion. If they are present it is clear that they have identified some big potential. Neuro Technology is one area where both are now trying to explore.

Mark Zuckerberg has progressed from Face Book to Meta and this is an intermediary step towards technologies that merge with neuro Technologies. Elon Musk’s firm Neurolink is already planning human clinical trials for some of its “Brain Chip”.  We can expect that both IBM and Google would also be already drawing up their own plans on how to extend their business to the “Human Mind space”.

Elon Musk’s Neuro Link co-founded in 2016 has reportedly successfully implan ted artificial intelligence microchips in the brains of a monkey and pig and is now planning to run tests on humans. (Details of he experiment  on the  monkey is available here)

Neuro Link trial demonstrates the effectiveness of the deep brain implanted chip which is charged wirelessly and is able to pick neuro signals from the brain, process it in the external computer and feedback the learnings to improve the ability of the subject to “Think of some thing and make the computer react”.

The Meta project of using an external device to provide immersive experience through the visual presentation is also supplemented with the devices which can move the hands and legs entirely through mental thoughts.

These developments indicate that the need to regulate the use of neuro technology is more evident than ever before. While the traditionalists are still harping on Cambridge Analytica and its impact on the US Elections, the alleged privacy violation of Cambridge Analytica pales into insignificance when we consider the developments that are happening in Neuro science.

 “Neuro Rights” to be codified into a law is therefore a current concern and India needs to address this as soon as possible.

Naavi

For a long time many are arguing that there is a power behind chanting of Mantras. Though the mention  of  “Mantras” immediately invokes a religious feeling and triggers a “Flight Response” in some individuals, everybody will agree if we say “Music” has an impact on human brain.

The principle that these thoughts represent that “Auditory Impulses” of a certain kind can interact with the human neural system. This could a positive effect that can calm the brain from a stressed situation or even excite the brain. The “War Drums” and “War trumpet” was perhaps designed to trigger an excited response from the soldiers while the “Om” Chanting or Gayatri Mantra chanting could be a de-stressing and creation of positive brain energies.

Neuro science is discussing the effect of “Binaural Beats” and its effect on sleep, therapy, meditation etc.

The concept of “Binaural Beats” is that when two tones of slightly different frequencies are played on separate ears simultaneously (say through head phones), the human brain perceives the creation of a new third tone whose frequency is equivalent to the difference between the two tones played.

For example, if a person hears a tone of 410Hz and 420 Hz in different ears, he would be hearing a binaural beat with a  frequency of 10 Hz.

Such effect is also seen in visual perception when an Optical Illusion” is created in a image consisting of a series of bright and dark spaces.

Binaural beats are said to provide many benefits in meditation, lowering of stress etc. It is said that in order to produce a binaural beat, the two tones sounded in the ears must both have frequencies below 1,500 Hz with a difference of no greater than 40 Hz between them.

The effects of the binaural beat will depend on its frequency and the corresponding brain wave. For example, a natural beat with a frequency between 4 and 7 Hz is more likely to align with theta brain waves, promoting sleep and relaxation.

Probably this alignment of the beat with the brain waves is behind the addiction of our youngsters to headphones.

There is however a need to research if the binaural beats have any harmful effect also.

In the context of “Neuro Rights”, we can infer that if there is a phenomenon of “Binaural Beats” and certain music can create modification of brain waves as a result, it is a subject matter of Neuro Rights regulation.

Naavi

Though it is scary to visualize the development of technology to “Brain Reading”,  it is a development that cannot be wished away.

There are several benefits of the Neuro Technologies in therapeutic world and hence continuous research is required.

The following article “Neurotechnology: where we are and where we are going” provides a good discussion as things were existing two years back.

We need more discussions and debates on this emerging technology which  is an interesting confluence of technology, psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. When we talk of the law of neuro rights, we need to consider all the dimensions of neuro technology and neuro science. We will be wading through unchartered waters but what we find may be very exciting.

We shall try to collect some thoughts on the topic and I invite other interested persons to join me in this journey.

Naavi

All privacy laws from GDPR to DPA 2021 define “Personal Information” (PI) and a need to “Protect Personal Information”.

In defining PI, the popular definition is that any information “about” a living human constitutes PI and should be subject to some regulation such as valid consent for processing etc.

Additionally, most laws also  define “Creating a Profile” constitutes a “Data Processing activity” that needs consent and the generated “Profile” is also part of the “Personal Information” which the data principal has a right  to control. The right of data portability extends to not only information provided by the data principal to the data fiduciary during the collection process but also to the profile created by the data fiduciary.

The Cambridge Analytica dispute was centred around the use of personal information to create a political profile for the purpose of targeted advertising.  Recently, I came across an article arguing that “We should stop automatic profiling of people”. Though this was in the context of an organized data processing activity, the article triggered some thoughts to indicate that this principle that “Profile” is part of personal information and is protected under privacy laws as an asset of the data principal requires a larger debate.

I am aware that this is a contrarian thought and is presented for the purpose of academic debate. It is not to be construed as an interpretation of the data protection law which by popular interpretation considers “Profile” is part of the personal data and needs to be protected by consent or legitimate interest. It is also subject to the right of portability and right to forget irrespective of the intellectual property rights associated with the creation of the profile, though the principles of anonymisation may be used for profiling of a group of people without violating the principles of privacy.

“Imaging a profile” is a fundamental and natural reaction of the human brain as a stimuli to any observation. This is part of the “Fight or Flight” response triggered in the human system.  The first step in this fight or flight response is to understand  the behaviour of people in a particular situation which  includes “Profiling” whether it is correct or incorrect. If the inference creates a more than threshold danger perception, it would trigger an action potential for fight or flight. Otherwise it is recorded for further processing. When the behaviour gets repeated next time, the brain may interpret that this person habitually of a particular behavioural trait and if it is not considered desirable, the brain triggers a “Mild fight or flight response”.

Thus “Drawing Inference” from any observation is a natural human trait and if it is absent we call a person un-intelligent or even an idiot.

The same tendency when carried out by a software is considered as “Profiling”. In this case the inference may lead to targeted advertising the same way human inference of a person as friendly leads to opening up a conversation.

Considering that this “Inference” is a natural human trait therefore, banning it through the privacy law is an unnatural inhibition on the human tendency and is unlikely to be effective.

On the other hand any misuse of information causing a harm to the individual whether through profiling or not can be considered as a “Civic Wrong” and be subjected to punishment.

We need to therefore debate whether “Profiling per-se” is bad in law or “Misuse of Profile alone is bad in law”.

It is therefore sufficient if privacy laws distinguish “Profiling per-se” and “Use of Profile” and not consider “Profiling per-se” as a “Violation of Privacy Right per-se” while the mis-use of profile can continue to be considered as a punishable act.

Comments are welcome.

Naavi

Neuro Tech devices are of different kinds. One such device is E-Sight (https://esighteyewear.com/int/).

Simple eye glasses that correct the deficiency in the focussing capabilities of a human eye. We donot recognize the eye glasses as a neuro tech device since it only interacts with the functions of the eye at the retinal level and not at the nerve level. Once the right image is focussed on the photo receptors inside the eye ball, the neuro system takes care of the rest of the vision.

E Sight is a device which addresses some of the deficiencies where by an image cannot be properly received by the photo receptors either because  part of the receptors donot function. Some may have peripheral vision but could lose the central vision with the development of a blind spot etc.

E Sight is a device that gathers high quality video and displays it on two OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) screens in front of  each eyes. The images are further enhanced by custom optics with algorithms that maximize functional sight. For example the images can be directed to working photo receptors within the eye and overcome the damaged receptors creating a blind spot.

We may classify such devices as an intermediary neuro tech device between the external devices such as the  eye glasses and hearing aids and the devices that connect to the neuro system.

Naavi

(This is part of the journey of Naavi in understanding Neuro Technology and Neuro Rights)