Wave of biological privacy laws coming as gadgets capture brain waves [Video]

The question “What is a thought?” is no longer strictly a philosophical one. Like anything else measurable, our thoughts are subject to increasingly technical answers, with data captured by tracking brainwaves. That breakthrough also means the data is commodifiable, and captured brain data is already being bought and sold by companies in the wearable consumer technologies space, with few protections in place for users. 

In response, Colorado recently passed a first-in-the-nation privacy act aimed at protecting these rights. The act falls under the existing “Colorado Consumer Protection Act,” which aims to protect “the privacy of individuals’ personal data by establishing certain requirements for entities that process personal data [and] includes additional protections for sensitive data.” 

The key language in the Colorado act is the expansion of the term “sensitive data” to include “biological data” — inclusive of numerous biological, genetic, biochemical, physiological, and neural properties.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink is the most famous example of how technology …