Employee Vulnerabilities Affected by the Use of Neurowearable Technology in the Workplace

Abstract

Neurotechnologies are reaching workplaces with systems and devices in growing variety and numbers. Possible opportunities and consequences can grow quickly as inventive applications reach new deployment. Devices in proximal contact near or on the skull can measure and analyze several aspects of the subject’s brain waves and areas of cortical activity. Here, we draw attention to wearable devices recording and transmitting data about brain activity on the job to others for monitoring purposes deemed important by managers, employers, and corporations. Evaluating such neurowearable developments may seem premature, but preliminary assessments of ethical concerns already have neuroethical attention. Potential benefits from measuring and monitoring physiological factors, brain activity, and mental functioning are not going unnoticed. Some benefits can be viewed as serving the interests of both employees and employers. Monitoring for mental strain, psychological health, and overall wellbeing sounds easier to justify at first glance. Besides any stated and intended functions and purposes to such neurowearables, the same information could be digested and reported as evaluations of a person’s mental acuity, attentional focus, emotional states, and overall productivity. Neurowearables appearing initially protective of employees may become pro-active against employees. Neuroethical priorities with safety, privacy, data ownership and security, and discrimination have to further magnify into ethico-legal issues about workplace fairness and employee rights.

Introduction

Rapid progress in developing viably donable and doffable neurotechnology (i.e. neurowearables) has prompted consideration, concerns and about the employment, possibilities of use and misuse, and problem(s) of applications in the workplace. In this light, attention is focused upon both the proposed individual and corporate-collective benefits that such technologies may afford, as well as the potential for these tools to foster and be influenced by discriminatory practices, and transgressions of employee rights. While ostensibly promoting the mental health, wellbeing, and productivity of employees (Svertoka et al. 2021), the aforementioned burdens – and evident risks – of neurowearables may foster ethico-legal as well as economic issues. To be sure, consideration of the psychological conditions and mental functioning of employees has been a long-established area of interest (Landy and Conte 2016). Thus, there should be little surprise towards corporate intentions to engage current and emerging neurotechnologies in such pursuits. Of note in this regard, Deloitte’s recent Global Human Capital Trends report (Deloitte 2024) specifically queried share and stakeholders’ acknowledgement, attitudes, and values regarding the use of neurotechnology in the workplace. It was found that 2% of respondents are seeing current use-in-practice, yet 35% of those sampled view the use of such tools and methods as viable – if not highly probable – within the next three to five years.

Neurowearables and the Workplace

Technologies that can be “worn” to non-invasively access neurocognitive and/or motor functions can be categorized as (1) those that solely “read” brain signals and assess/relay information; (2) those that can be used to affect brain function(s); and (3) combinatory tools capable of assessing and affecting neural signals and functions. Iterative development(s) in neural devices that achieve operational level of technological readiness tend to generate expanding sets of proposed capabilities and applications, and ethico-legal issues, questions, and consternation. The latter include where such devices could and/or should be employed; what the neurotechnologies would be intended to do; and those ways that such intended effects could foster collateral manifestations on idiosyncratic as well as systemic scales. Recent progress in neurotechnology aimed at optimizing human performance have broadened the such that the use of these methods has blurred the boundaries of occupational and preventive medicine, paraclinical employee/corporate wellness; and direct-to-consumer and do-it-yourself markets (Patel et al. 2022). Indeed, advancements such as wearable neurofeedback and low output neuromodulatory devices have enabled both corporations and individual consumers to access these means for little more than a few hundred dollars. Such availability is establishing a new set of demand, supply, and perhaps normative thresholds, tolerances, and constraints. While precise capabilities can vary greatly depending on the device’s design and deployment, these neurotechnologies are marketed with a range of similar promises. Neurowearables already finding direct- to-consumer markets have enjoyed growing adoption, and their potential beyond focus and mood modulation is apparent (Farahany 2023). Neuralink has grabbed the spotlight with its brain-to-computer interfacing, but non-invasive transcranial devices are not humble about their potential for human improvement. A short list of currently available devices for non-medical usage include FocusBand, InteraXon (Muse headband), Neurable, MIT Solve (the Melomind), Emotiv, Neurocity (the Crown), Sens.ai, and Mendi. A perusal of their websites finds language about brain “health,” brain “focus,” brain “fitness,” and brain “training,” alongside claims about “optimal” consciousness, “total” absorption, “rewiring,” “hacking,” and similarly vague terms. A device effecting relaxation and sleepiness would not translate well in the workplace, but a device delivering a calming or centering effect may be conducive to an individual’s performance depending on the workload situation. An advanced device that measurably improves and prolongs attention, while it tracks, records, and relays brain information, would surely garner corporate and industry interest (O’Brien 2024). The direction of attentiveness cannot be overlooked, since highly focused employees may be fixating on personal matters other than on-task activities. The affective dimension of psychological states won’t be irrelevant either. Employers would also appreciate metrics bearing on employee’s real-time attitudes and emotional states. Employes are already showing signs of sensitization to these sorts of looming issues amounting to invasive surveillance. Surveys are reporting how people can easily think of major concerns about the deployment of biometric sensors by employers. “Although both employers and employees recognize the potential benefits of wearable biosensors, and many have had positive experiences with similar technologies using personal devices (Fitbits, Garmins, Apple watches), there are still major concerns about privacy, potential for data misuse, and excessive oversight in a workplace setting.” (Tindale et al. 2022, 6)

Employee Vulnerabilities

Express worries about “excessive oversight” is a placeholder for a variety of concerns that only magnify where brain sensing becomes a reality. Whose brain is one’s own brain being compared against? First, wearable neurotech could not work equally well for everyone in a one-size-fits-all manner, due to variant psychological and neurophysiological factors. Second, some employees could be assessed as “falling behind” in productivity as companies raise expectations to match higher-level performances among successful neurowearable users. Third, unfair and discriminatory practices could be imposed on anybody without fair warning or compensation. One primary issue about the use of neurowearables behind many concerns has to address the type and extent of information that will be collected in the course of using the device, and how such information could be accessed and utilized. While it tends to be customary for neurowearable technology manufacturers to provide some description of the parameters of data acquisition, and application, concerns persist about the fates of these brain data in event of commercial solvency, new ownership acquisition, or provenance determination and governance. Even within a particular corporation’s use, at very least, it could be envisioned that individuals’ brain information could be sharable in some form or another, including with supervisory personnel. The implications of data sharing – and its use – could be far-reaching and far more problematic with every growth stage of neurowearable distribution. Neurolaw and neuroethics are not arriving late to this emerging employment issue. Stephanie Kostiuk (2012) proposed a Neuro Information Nondiscrimination Act, a forerunner to current calls for cognitive liberty and neurorights (Herrera-Ferrá et al. 2023; Shook and Giordano 2024). The corporate world will not ignore such ethical and legal challenges, but public relations diversions away from harms towards “everyone wins” benefits must be anticipated. We can expect that neurowearables in the workforce will be promoted for their benefits to users while on the job. But this prompts the question of whether they will truly reduce employee vulnerabilities, or will eventually increase them? Critical attention placed on these devices in the public arena will only further heighten workplace concerns. Ever more granular questions are needed, not just about personal surveillance, employment discrimination, and preferential advantages, but also about technological trends that perpetuate neuro- ableism and exacerbate extant inequity of, and bias against disadvantaged groups. As Bernhardt has noted, “Applying a medical model to an information-centric design entails giving messages about changes in brains and cognition that appeal to, or imply, a distinction between normal brainhood and abnormal conditions to be cured.” (Bernhardt 2021, 300)

Conclusion

Given the relatively novelty of neurowearables. their wide impact as mass market consumer devices for people across a wide range of mental capacities and challenges cannot yet be fully envisioned nor well understood. A better-informed public should take notice of likelihood – and implications – of workplace neurowearables. In particular, government agencies should closely consider the ramifications to on-the- job neurotechnologies with a view to protect privacy and employment rights of workers. While individual protections and rights must be acknowledged, addressed, and striven to be assured, it is equally important to consider effects and implications beyond the idiosyncratic. Neuroethics should acquire insights into systemic manifestations and effects that the use (and misuse, and/or non-use) of neurowearable assessment and modulatory technologies that may incur within various domains and dimensions of the occupational/commercial, socio-economic, and political realms (Desai, Shook, Giordano 2021). Our ongoing work remains dedicated to these pursuits.

References

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