Chile: the first constitutional neurorights
Chile is the pioneer. In 2021 it amended its constitution (Law 21.383) to protect brain activity and the information derived from it, and it advanced a companion neuroprotection bill to give the guarantee operational content. This is the first time neural data received explicit constitutional-level protection anywhere. See the Chilean neurorights law and the Emotiv ruling.
The point was tested in court. In 2023 the Chilean Supreme Court ruled in a case brought against Emotiv, a maker of a consumer EEG headset, ordering the company to delete the complainant's neural data. It is the first judicial decision to enforce neurorights — but note its scope honestly: it concerned a specific consumer device and a specific data-deletion remedy, not a sweeping ban. Landmark rulings establish that a right can bite; they do not settle every future case.
UNESCO: the first global instrument
At the international layer, UNESCO produced the first global standard-setting instrument on the subject: the Recommendation on the Ethics of Neurotechnology, adopted by its member states in 2025 after a multi-year expert process. It articulates principles — human dignity, mental privacy and integrity, proportionality, transparency, and equitable access — and calls on states to build them into law, oversight, and education.
The state-law patchwork
Where binding duties are appearing fastest is inside existing privacy statutes. In 2024 the US state of Colorado amended its privacy act to add neural data to the categories of sensitive data, and California followed by extending its consumer-privacy law to cover neural data; further US states moved in the same direction afterward. Rather than invent a new right, these laws fold brain data into the consumer neural-data and data-governance machinery already in place.
The result is a patchwork: constitutional protection in one country, a soft-law recommendation at the global level, and sensitive-data amendments in a handful of subnational jurisdictions. For a device maker or researcher, the practical duty depends on where the data is collected and stored — a jurisdictional map that is still being drawn.
Rights inflation or necessary innovation?
The live debate, now with real statutes to argue over, is whether naming neurorights adds protection or merely relabels it. Supporters point to Chile and UNESCO as proof that explicit recognition mobilizes courts and regulators. Skeptics note that the Emotiv remedy — deleting improperly held data — is exactly what a well-applied ordinary data-protection law delivers, and worry that a proliferation of specialized rights fragments enforcement. Both readings are defensible; the honest position is that we do not yet have enough enforced cases to declare a winner.