Human Enhancing Technologies and Individual Privacy Right
This chapter provides a legal perspective on the application of Human Enhancing Technologies (HET), in particular on Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), emphasizing threats they bring to individual privacy. The author discusses the geographical, political, and cultural differences in understanding the individual right to privacy, as granted by human rights treaties and customary international law, and confronts them with the threats brought about by HET. The era of globalized services rendered by transnational companies necessitates an answer to the question on the possible and desired shape of effective individual protection of human rights from the threats brought about by advancing HET. Be it biomedical or geolocalisation data, when fueled through the Big Data resources available online, individual data accompanying the HET becomes a powerful marketing tool and a significant national and international security measure. The chapter aims to identify the privacy threats brought about by the HET and proposes a business-ethics based solution.