• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.145-178
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• 2020

This paper examines discussions surrounding cognitive liberty, neuro-privacy, and mental integrity from the perspective of Neuro-rights. The right to control one's neurological data entails self-determination of collection and usage of one's data, and the right to object to any way such data may be employed to negatively impact oneself. As innovations in neurotechnologies bear benefits and downsides, a novel concept of the neuro-rights has been suggested to protect individual liberty and rights. In Oct. 2020, the Chilean Senate presented the 'Proyecto de ley sobre neuroderechos' to promote the recognition and protection of neuro-rights. This new bill defines all data obtained from the brain as neuronal data and outlaws the commerce of this data. Neurotechnology, especially when paired with big data and artificial intelligence, has the potential to turn one's neurological state into data. The possibility of inferring one's intent, preferences, personality, memory, emotions, and so on, poses harm to individual liberty and rights. However, the collection and use of neural data may outpace legislative innovation in the near future. Legal protection of neural data and the rights of its subject must be established in a comprehensive way, to adapt to the evolving data economy and technical environment.