Mental Privacy

The emergence of consumer neurotechnologies has introduced unprecedented access to brain-derived data, raising fundamental questions about mental privacy that extend beyond traditional data protection frameworks. While ethical debates have focused on the superior informativeness of neural data or unfamiliarity with new technologies, less is understood about the underlying psychological and philosophical foundations that shape public attitudes toward brain data sharing. This research project investigates whether people’s reluctance to share neural information stems from perceived epistemic value or from deeper symbolic associations between the brain and personal identity.

Through cross-cultural experimental studies spanning the UK, Germany, and Spain, the research reveals a striking dissociation between perceived reliability and sharing willingness. Participants consistently rated brain-derived data (EEG) and heart rate data as equally reliable for measuring emotions, yet demonstrated significantly greater reluctance to share the neural information. Importantly, the inclusion of pupillometry data, which was rated as less reliable than EEG but equally acceptable to share, demonstrates that sharing attitudes are not driven by concerns about data accuracy or access to mental states. Contextual factors that typically influence privacy decisions, such as whether data is shared with private companies versus public institutions or used for individual versus collective benefit, had minimal impact on brain data sharing attitudes.

This work makes important theoretical and practical contributions by demonstrating that mental privacy concerns are grounded in the symbolic intimacy of brain data rather than epistemic considerations. The findings challenge prevailing assumptions in neuroethics and data governance frameworks that emphasize use-case or institutional affiliation as primary determinants of privacy sensitivity. By employing experimental philosophy methods to interrogate the concept of mental privacy itself, the research addresses fundamental questions about whether people are more troubled by the responsibility that comes from exposed private thoughts than by the privacy violation itself. The cross-cultural consistency of results supports the development of supranational neurorights policies while revealing globally shared intuitions about the brain’s privileged status.

The research fills a critical gap between normative discussions of neurorights and empirical understanding of public attitudes toward neural data sharing. By demonstrating that reluctance to share brain data persists across contexts and cultures, independent of perceived informativeness, this work provides essential groundwork for developing ethical frameworks and data literacy programs that account for the unique symbolic significance of neural information. These insights have immediate relevance for the design of consumer neurotechnologies and the development of governance frameworks that move beyond traditional privacy models to address the qualitatively distinct concerns raised by access to brain-derived data.