Brain-Computer Interfaces and the Protection of the Fundamental Rights of the Vulnerable Persons

BCI devices and their capacity to express human will having legal value: A model of risk-based classification

“…In a not-so-different case, for example, the Italian Guardianship Judge of Sassari declared able to legally self-determinate a patient suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) who was using an eye-controlled device to communicate, basing their decision on a technical assessment of 'consistency' between the tool-mediated manifestation of will and what the patient wanted to express. As Pizzetti (2020) states 16 , according to this ruling, a biotechnological communication device, as the BCI-based ones, may be considered legally reproducing a person's will only where, after a proper evaluation, it can be considered technically 'suitable' to realize an effective and reliable directly-from-the-brain communication, which can be considered surely 'attributable' to the subject.…”