By Marissa Ventrelli | COLORADO POLITICS
A panel of lawmakers approved legislation that would make Colorado the first in the nation to protect people’s biological data from technology companies, raising worries that new machines could be come so powerful they could read thoughts.
The House Judiciary Committee advanced House Bill 1058, which expands upon the Colorado Privacy Act’s definition of “sensitive data” to include biological and neural data.
Under the measure, biological data means information that provides a “characterization of the biological, genetic, biochemical, or physiological properties, compositions, or activities of an individual’s body or bodily functions.” It includes neural data, which the bill defines as “information that concerns the activity of an individual’s central nervous system or peripheral nervous systems, including the brain and spinal cord, and that can be processed by or with the assistance of a device.”
The bill specifically targets consumer-facing neurotechnology devices, such as sleep trackers and neurofeedback devices, as data from technology used in a medical setting — such as an EEG, for example — is already protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.