Securing Mental Privacy: Governing Brain and Neural Data

  • Panel
  • Orangerie
  • Friday 22.05 — 08:45 - 10:00

Organising Institution

Tilburg University - Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT)

Netherlands

TILT is one of the leading research groups in Europe at the intersection of law, technology, and society. It is based on the multidisciplinary study of socio-technical changes, aimed at understanding the interaction between technology and social and normative practices, in order to clarify how the regulatory challenges of socio-technical changes can be addressed.
  • Academic 2
  • Business 1
  • Policy 3
Neurotechnology is leaving the lab and entering offices, classrooms, clinics and consumer devices. Brain-derived signals and the inferences built on top of them create distinctive privacy risks that current compliance playbooks do not fully address. This panel examines how GDPR and Convention 108+ can be applied to neural signals and derived profiles, what to do about de-identification that rarely holds, and how to keep secondary use in check when inference pipelines are opaque. We will translate ethical guidance into enforceable practice, focusing on DPIAs, legal bases in research and employment, cross-border processing, and procurement criteria. The aim is practical: give regulators, researchers and firms clear choices that actually reduce risk while allowing careful innovation.

Questions to be answered

  1. Do neural signals and their inferences fit within existing special-category regimes, or do they need tailored rules?
  2. What does a credible DPIA for neurotechnology look like in research, employment and education settings?
  3. Where do consent and de-identification break down for brain data, and what alternatives should replace them?
  4. Which supervisory outputs would help now, for example classification guidance, model-inference risk baselines, or procurement conditions?

Moderator

Aimen Taimur

Tilburg University - Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) - Netherlands

Speaker

Virginia Mahieu

Centre for Future Generations - Belgium

Virginia Mahieu is the Neurotechnology Director at the Centre for Future Generations (CFG), an independent Brussels-based think tank. She leads work analysing emerging trends in neurotechnologies, their ethical, societal, and legal implications, and how to ensure that neurotech develops responsibly and in line with European values. She previously worked in the Policy Foresight Unit of the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) as a strategic foresight practitioner, with a focus on emerging technologies, behavioural insights, and scenario planning. Virginia holds a PhD in sensory neuroscience from the University of Sussex, and a PGC in EU Policymaking from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. 

Speaker

Alexandra Ziaka

Tilburg University - Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) - Netherlands

Speaker

Jacopo Piemonte

LSTS, VUB, CDSL - Italy

Jacopo is a PHD researcher at the Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) research group and a member of the Cyber and Data Security Lab (CDLS). His PhD research, under the supervision of Prof. Vagelis Papakonstantinou, focuses on the legal and regulatory implications of emerging neurotechnologies, with particular attention to systems directly interfacing with the human brain. His academic interests include data governance and the regulation of artificial intelligence. Jacopo is a qualified lawyer admitted to the Italian Bar. In his practice, in addition to significant expertise in alternative dispute resolution, he has gained extensive experience in technology regulation, dealing with data protection, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity matters. He obtained his Master’s Degree in Law from the University of Udine (Italy) and an LL.M. in International and European Law with a specialization in Data Law from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Brussels School of Governance (Belgium), graduating with Great Distinction in 2022 with a thesis on facial recognition technologies.