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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hum. Dyn.
Sec. Digital Impacts
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fhumd.2024.1473893
This article is part of the Research Topic Socio-Legal, Ethical, Technical and Medical Considerations on Neuroprivacy and Brain-Machine Interaction Technologies in the era of A.I. View all 5 articles

The Challenge of Wearable Neurodevices for Workplace Monitoring: An EU Legal Perspective

Provisionally accepted
Ekaterina Muhl Ekaterina Muhl *
  • University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This paper explores the emerging practice of workplace surveillance by using neurotechnologies, particularly wearable neurodevices, to monitor employees' cognitive abilities, concentration levels, and emotional responses. It aims to assess the legality of such practices within the framework of EU law, focusing on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) by providing a detailed analysis of recent EU legislation in the context of the implementation of neurosurveillance at the workplace.Furthermore, the paper discusses whether current regulations adequately address the use of neurotechnologies in the workplace or are overly restrictive. It raises the question of ensuring sufficient flexibility in the regulations to allow for legitimate implementations of neurotechnologies in the labour field for workers' safety while protecting workers' rights. Overall, the paper offers insights into the intersection of neurotechnology advancements and labour relations and stimulates critical discussion about the fair balance between innovation and workers' rights.

    Keywords: neurosurveillance, Brain data, Mental data, AI Act, GDPR, Employers' rights

    Received: 31 Jul 2024; Accepted: 25 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Muhl. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ekaterina Muhl, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.