1 research outputs found
A Framework for Preserving Privacy and Cybersecurity in Brain-Computer Interfacing Applications
Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) comprise a rapidly evolving field of
technology with the potential of far-reaching impact in domains ranging from
medical over industrial to artistic, gaming, and military. Today, these
emerging BCI applications are typically still at early technology readiness
levels, but because BCIs create novel, technical communication channels for the
human brain, they have raised privacy and security concerns. To mitigate such
risks, a large body of countermeasures has been proposed in the literature, but
a general framework is lacking which would describe how privacy and security of
BCI applications can be protected by design, i.e., already as an integral part
of the early BCI design process, in a systematic manner, and allowing suitable
depth of analysis for different contexts such as commercial BCI product
development vs. academic research and lab prototypes. Here we propose the
adoption of recent systems-engineering methodologies for privacy threat
modeling, risk assessment, and privacy engineering to the BCI field. These
methodologies address privacy and security concerns in a more systematic and
holistic way than previous approaches, and provide reusable patterns on how to
move from principles to actions. We apply these methodologies to BCI and data
flows and derive a generic, extensible, and actionable framework for
brain-privacy-preserving cybersecurity in BCI applications. This framework is
designed for flexible application to the wide range of current and future BCI
applications. We also propose a range of novel privacy-by-design features for
BCIs, with an emphasis on features promoting BCI transparency as a prerequisite
for informational self-determination of BCI users, as well as design features
for ensuring BCI user autonomy. We anticipate that our framework will
contribute to the development of privacy-respecting, trustworthy BCI
technologies