Prosthetic privacy
- Gary Hinson
- 12 hours ago
- 2 min read
A new SC27 project has been approved, developing an ISO27k standard on privacy for the Brain-Computer Interface, part of meditech or healthtech you could say.
Consider the privacy implications of these vaguely-conceivable if mostly futuristic/other-worldly BCI applications:
Brain implants picking-up neurological signals to control prosthetic limbs or weapons, ideally providing 'force feedback' for proportional control, dexterity and accuracy.
Remote control/direction of animals and objects/devices by thought alone.
Brain sensors detecting and perhaps responding to the onset of neurological conditions such as tremors, fits, migraines, depression, DTs or simply dozing off at the wheel or during a tedious speech at an interminable meeting.
Enabling communications: digital sight for the blind, digital audio for the deaf, digital touch for diabetics, digital smells and tastes for fast-foodies, digital speech for theoretical physicists.
Babel fish-style real time translation, direct to brain waves or voice box.
Moderation of harmful or detrimental thoughts, such as "I really fancy another pork pie", "I'll smash your face in with a bat!" or "Hmmm, it's good of my bank to warn me: I'll click the link to find out more".
Research into brain function and dysfunction, thought patterns, natural intelligence, memory, perception, premonition, bias, prejudice, desire, emotion and all that jazz ...
Creative stimulation and entertainment - eLSD? Cerebral gaming? Digital jazz?
Advertising, promotion, narratives, rhetoric, misinformation, disinformation ...
Arousal of all sorts e.g. from coma, anaesthetic or slumber, perhaps through music and drama.
Rapid learning, knowledge transfer (both ways), training/re-training, skill enhancement, replication of outstanding natural abilities.
Selective memory enhancement, including re-imagining of traumatic events and risk scenarios on steroids.
Biometric authentication of the individual.
Real time authentic personal feedback or commentaries in all manner of personal interactions.
Hive-mind communcations between individuals and machines e.g. directing drone swarms, global collaboration to develop even better standards and solve society's biggest problems.
1984-style thought-control, Newspeak, compliance, censorship, 'cultural alignment', coercion or punishment by Big Brother - the ultimatel kill-switch?
In such cases, the digital controllers would be receiving, interpreting/processing and outputting data in these most intimate settings, raising a bunch of concerns including privacy, governance, control and of course safety, as well as some very exciting technovation.
The digital controllers would be running computer applications - programs - and using various communications facilities. The operating systems, applications and comms would presumably need to be monitored, administered, controlled, patched, protected against malware and hackers, highly resilient and reliable, portable, low-energy ... similar to IoT things ...
... but, for starters, the standards project is focused on BCI privacy.
For more, see the updated page on ISO/IEC 27574 and feel free to contact your national standards body to get involved, especially if you profess genuine expertise in BCI privacy (which, patently, I don't).