Minister Pigai supports neurorights protection in Human Rights Bill
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Minister of Human Rights Natalius Pigai supports the inclusion of neurorights protections, or the right over one’s thoughts, in the draft Human Rights Bill as an anticipatory measure in the face of developments in artificial intelligence and neurotechnology.
Pigai said technological developments need to be anticipated early because advances in neurotechnology have the potential to create new forms of human rights violations, including against privacy and human thought.
“There needs to be a law that regulates this in the draft Human Rights Bill. One article on neurotechnology protection,” Pigai said while presenting his policy directives in Jakarta on Monday.
He said neurochip technology in the future has the potential to become increasingly capable of recording or processing information about a person’s condition. According to him, these developments need to be accompanied by legal instruments capable of providing protection for individual rights.
“My thoughts could be stolen by someone else. So there needs to be a law that protects against neurological theft, because neurotechnology today is more advanced,” he said.
He assessed that neurorights protection is part of the Ministry of Human Rights’ efforts to anticipate forms of rights violations that may emerge as technology develops, rather than merely responding to human rights issues that have already occurred.
Pigai further explained that the idea relates to a projection approach in human rights development planning. The Ministry of Human Rights, he said, is working to map possible future human rights conditions as a basis for policy formulation.
“Yes, this is what I mean. Neurorights, yes, neurorights. This is the same as thinking about what will happen in the future. We are not fortune tellers, we are not futurologists, but we are designers of technocratic development in the field of human rights, especially economic, social and cultural rights, where we carry out technocratic planning for the future based on projected calculations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,” Pigai said.
He said these projections will later become one of the inputs for preparing technocratic planning for human rights development. Thus, projections of economic, social and cultural conditions at a certain time will be followed by development planning adjusted to those conditions.
“So if the conditions later, for example if we project that in 2050 the economic, social and cultural conditions will be like this, then the technocratic planning projection must be designed accordingly,” he said.
Pigai added that the preparation of technocratic planning for national development is the authority of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas). The Ministry of Human Rights will also bring this perspective to the preparation of the National Human Rights Development Planning Deliberation (Musrenbang).
The effort to include neurorights issues in the Human Rights Bill is part of the Ministry of Human Rights’ anticipatory approach to ensure that technological developments do not neglect the protection of basic human rights, particularly as technology becomes increasingly capable of processing information relating to the human body, mind and behaviour.