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Neurotech: privacy & data protection

11 October 2024 / Harry Lambert
Issue: 8089 / Categories: Features , Profession , Technology , Privacy , Data protection
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Harry Lambert continues his series on neurorights—this time with the focus on neurotechnology & its intersection with fundamental privacy rights
  • Examines the burgeoning neurotechnology field, and considers in turn the three primary legal causes of action that are relevant to privacy and neurotechnology: breach of confidence, misuse of private information, and breach of the General Data Protection Regulation.

In contemporary society, individuals already relinquish substantial amounts of personal privacy to corporations in exchange for negligible benefits. As neurotechnology develops, the stakes will be higher. The benefits will be greater (for example, writing a text or controlling a computer game with your thoughts), but so too will be the risks. If we are not careful, the pact society makes with Big Tech is going to become increasingly Faustian. To quote Nita Farahany, author of The Battle for your Brain (2023)), neurotechnology is now encroaching upon the ‘last fortress’ of our freedom.

This article addresses the interplay between neurotechnology and privacy, considering how existing legal frameworks might respond to emerging challenges.

Normative underpinnings

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

Gilson Gray—Jeremy Davy

Gilson Gray—Jeremy Davy

Partner appointed as head of residential conveyancing for England

DR Solicitors—Paul Edels

DR Solicitors—Paul Edels

Specialist firm enhances corporate healthcare practice with partner appointment

NEWS
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
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