IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2015 - 33

to use and will require less time and user effort, while
enabling faster and more accurate translation of users'
intended messages.
These developments raise questions about privacy
and security. At the 2012 USENIX Security Symposium, researchers introduced the first BCI enabled
malicious application, referred to as "brain spyware."
The application was used to extract private information, such as credit card PINs, dates of
birth, and locations of residence, from
users' recorded EEG signals [7].
As BCI technology spreads further
(towards becoming ubiquitous), it is easy
to imagine more sophisticated "spying"
applications being developed for nefarious purposes. Leveraging recent neuroscience results (e.g., [8]-[11]), it may
be possible to extract private information about users' memories, prejudices,
religious and political beliefs, as well
as about their possible neurophysiological disorders. The extracted information could be used to manipulate or
coerce users, or otherwise harm them.
The impact of "brain malware" could
be severe, in terms of privacy and other
important values. A question arises: is it
in the public interest to allow anyone to
have unrestricted access to the private
information extractable from neural signals? And if not, how should we grant
such access, and how can this be managed, regulated, or otherwise controlled?
While U.S. federal law protects medical information [12] and generally guards
against unfair or deceptive practices [13],
few rules or standards currently limit
access to BCI-generated data. Importantly, platforms are immunized for apps
that third parties submit, such that BCImanufacturers are not necessarily incentivized, from a
legal vantage, to police against abusive apps.
We believe emerging BCI privacy concerns call for a
coordinated response by engineers and neuroscientists,
lawyers and ethicists, government and industry. Ideally,
devices, algorithms, standards and regulations can
be designed to mitigate BCI privacy problems and ethical challenges. The first step towards doing so should
be an open discussion between ethicists, legal experts,
neuroscientists, and engineers.

Overview of BCI Technologies
A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a communication
system between the brain and the external environment.
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In this system, messages between an individual and an
external world do not pass through the brain's normal
pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles. Instead,
messages are typically encoded in electrophysiological
signals, such as electroencephalograms (EEG), signals
directly measuring electrical potentials produced by neural synaptic activities [14]-[16].
The initial motivation for the development of BCIs
came from the growing recognition of the needs of people with disabilities, and of potential benefits BCIs might
offer. The first BCI was developed in the 1970s [15]. Since
then, many research programs have focused on the development of BCIs, for assistance, augmentation and repair
of cognitive and sensorimotor capabilities of people with
severe neuromuscular disorders, such as spinal cord injuries or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
In recent years, however, BCIs have seen a surge in
popularity in fiction, gaming, entertainment, and marketing. There are currently several consumer-grade BCI-based
systems (e.g., Emotive System [5], NeuroSky [6], and g-tec
Medical Engineering [17]) offering relatively low-cost EEGbased BCIs and software development kits to support
and facilitate expansion of BCI-enabled applications. The
supported applications can broadly be classified into:
a) accessibility tools, such as mind-controlled mouse and
keyboard, b) hands-free arcade games, such as Brain Bats,
mind-controlled Pong game [18], and c) "serious games,"
i.e., games with purpose other than pure entertainment,
such as attention and memory training [19].
BCIs are also emerging as a tool for personalized entertainment. It has been known for some time that the ability
to make inferences about a user's cognitive processes and
emotional responses, such as satisfaction, boredom, or
confusion, enables the development of more adaptive and
responsive entertainment products. There already exist
several gaming consoles that use pressure, motion, or
gaze sensors to make inferences about a user's behavioral
states [7]. Very recently researchers from Taiwan have proposed a method of predicting success of an online game
by analyzing a user's electromyographic (EMG) signals (i.e.,
electrical signals produced by a user's skeletal muscles)
over the first 45 minutes of the game [9].
In addition to the gaming and entertainment industries, in recent years market research companies have
also shown an increased interest in BCI-enabled technologies. In 2008, for example, the Nielsen company
has introduced the Mynd, an EEG-based BCI device
specifically developed for market research [7]. It is reasonable to expect more and more information about
users' cognitive and behavioral processes, as well
as their emotional states will be extracted (with and
without permission) for a variety of entertainment and
marketing studies, as BCI-enabled applications become
more widespread.

IEEE TEchnology and SocIETy MagazInE

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