You can now purchase a cap or a headband that monitors your brain waves, but what happens to that data?

Neural data, which is information concerning the activity of our central or peripheral nervous

systems that can be gathered by these devices can reveal deeply intimate information.

It's Wednesday, May 1st and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm Sci-Fi producer Shoshana Bucksbound.

There's some snazzy new wearable neurotech on the market. Companies offering the

promise of better sleep or meditative states. But where will all of that

neural data get stored and how will it be used? Good question. Turns out there are no federal

laws governing the data collected by these devices.

But just recently, Colorado was the first state in the country to pass legislation protecting

neural data in consumer products.

Here's guest host Ariel Dum Ross with more.

Joining me now to talk more about the current landscape

of neural privacy is my next guest.

Jared Genser, general counsel and co-founder of the Neur Rights Foundation, he's based in Washington, D.C.

Jared, welcome to Science Friday.

Thanks for having me.

Can you give me an overview of the types of consumer products currently on the market that collect

neural data?

Sure, there are about 30 different products you can buy online today.

They really are in three different categories. The first is in wellness, the kind of projects you were describing.

The second is in entertainment, for example, you can actually fly a helicopter drone using your thoughts.

And the third kind of device are really for do-it-yourselfers who want to kind of dig into doing brain scans and develop software for processing data that comes from those devices.

...