California Passes Law Protecting Consumer Brain Data

On Saturday, Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed a new law that aims to protect people’s brain data from being potentially misused by neurotechnology companies.

A growing number of consumer technology products promise to help address cognitive issues: apps to meditate, to improve focus and to treat mental health conditions like depression. These products monitor and record brain data, which encodes virtually everything that goes on in the mind, including thoughts, feelings and intentions.

The new law, which passed both the California State Assembly and the Senate with no voter opposition, amends the state’s current personal privacy law — known as the California Consumer Privacy Act — by including “neural data” under “personal sensitive information.” This includes data generated by a user’s brain activity and the meshwork of nerves that extends to the rest of the body.

“I’m very excited,” said Sen. Josh Becker, Democrat of California, who sponsored the bill. “It’s important that we be up front about protecting the privacy of neural data — a very important set of data that belongs to people.”

With tens of thousands of tech startups, California is a hub for tech innovation. This includes smaller companies developing brain technologies, but Big Tech companies like Meta and Apple are also developing devices that will likely involve collecting vast troves of brain data.

“The importance of protecting neural data in California cannot be understated,” Sen. Becker said.

The bill extends the same level of protections to neural data that it does for other data already considered sensitive under the California Consumer Privacy Act, such as facial images, DNA and fingerprints, known as biometric information.