[ 14 octobre 2024 ]
Brain implants: for the consecration of neuro-rights
The man/machine convergence announced by transhumanists is no longer science fiction. Announcements have multiplied in recent months concerning the development of brain implants to remedy a situation of physical disability or the effects of neurological diseases.
Quadriplegics have been able to walk again thanks to an exoskeleton connected to the brain, or even thanks to a brain-spinal cord interface (a brain implant connected to another implant in the spinal cord). Several patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, more commonly known as “Charcot’s disease”) have also benefited from these medical technological innovations. One, suffering from significant speech difficulties, was able to deliver a speech using a vocal neuroprosthesis that interprets brain signals and transforms them into text (see “An Accurate and Rapidly Calibrating Speech Neuroprosthesis?” New England Journal of Medicine (2024), ici). The other is capable of controlling several digital devices (telephone, computer, personal assistant) by thought thanks to an interface inserted in the jugular vein (by the company Synchron). Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has announced that its brain implant has already enabled paralyzed people to do the same.
While these technological advances offer significant therapeutic hope, they are not without raising numerous ethical and societal issues.
■ The possibility of accessing brain data, in other words to the most intimate part of each person, suggests the possibility significant breaches of privacy. Their algorithmic processing could lead to the emergence of profiling and surveillance tools likely to lead to a society of control or to the multiplication of discrimination based on the state of mental health. Further, a drift towards the modification of thoughts and the influence of the behavior of others, causing all free will to disappear, could be feared. This is also the case of the temptation to cognitively augment humans (neuroenhancement), an objective expressly pursued, in the long term, by the Neuralink company.
■ The protection of brain data offered by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is insufficient, the latter not automatically falling into the category of sensitive data, the processing of which is in principle prohibited (even if exceptions are provided for by art. 9). Let us recall that the principle is on the contrary that of the possibility of organizing the processing of other personal data, as long as the latter is lawful (that is to say justified by one of the legal bases listed by art. 6). Brain data will be considered sensitive if it can be qualified as health data, or if it reveals information of a sexual, political or religious nature (in accordance with art. 9, § 1). The particularity of brain data should, however, be enough to qualify them, in all cases, as sensitive data. It appears essential to protect them specifically, due to the serious attack on the privacy of the person concerned that may result from this, the human being being in a way “disseminated” in this data which constitutes the digital trace of his mind.
■ The disruptive nature of the neuro-technologies that are being developed invites us to rethink the traditional fundamental rights and freedoms. It is therefore envisaged to devote neuro-rights in order to protect the psychological integrity of each human being. Chile has embarked on this path in 2021, by including in its Constitution that “Scientific and technological development is at the service of individuals and is carried out with respect for life and physical and mental integrity. » A consensus seems to be emerging in this direction at the international level. The International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO proposed supplementing the traditional list of human rights with the creation of neuro-rights in its report Ethical Aspects of Neuro-technologies, adopted in December 2021. The State of Colorado has has since adopted a law to protect the confidentiality of neuronal data in 2023. In France, the idea has also been taken up by the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices (OPECST). In 2022, its rating “ Neurotechnologies: scientific and ethical challenges » thus invited to “ define a protective legislative framework, close to that adopted in Chile, with emphasis on the security of devices, respect for the right to the integrity of one’s body and the right to privacy, the protection of personal data, including including data from recording brain activity ».
