Raw brain signals should not stand alone as evidence, Iranian analysis finds
A legal and scientific review says these signals may support other evidence during preliminary investigations, but only with informed consent.
Editorial illustration — not from the study.
The study examines raw neural data through scientific, legal and jurisprudential perspectives. It argues that technical difficulties, interpretation errors and the gap between biological brain activity and criminal intent prevent these signals from conclusively showing a person’s criminal intent.
The analysis says compulsory use could conflict with fair-trial protections, including the right to silence, the presumption of innocence and mental privacy. It recommends new rules for collecting and assessing neural data, along with specialized committees that include legal, ethical and neuroscience experts.
What the analysis found
The researchers conclude that raw neural data should be treated as a probabilistic scientific or judicial indication, not as conclusive criminal evidence. Signals such as EEG recordings may help judges assess a case or corroborate traditional evidence, but they should not be the sole basis for a conviction, especially in cases involving hudud or qisas punishments, where the analysis says jurisprudence requires certainty.
The study identifies uncertainty in collecting and interpreting the data, high error rates and an explanatory gap between measurable brain activity and criminal intent. It also concludes that mandatory reliance on neural data could conflict with the right to silence, the presumption of innocence, the protection against compelled self-incrimination and the right to mental privacy.
The authors recommend limiting use to the preliminary investigation stage and requiring informed and voluntary consent. They also call for specific rules covering data collection, expert error rates and reliability assessment, as well as specialized neurolaw committees within the judiciary.
Why the limits matter
The analysis addresses how a criminal justice system might use brain recordings without treating biological signals as direct proof of a person’s intentions. Its proposed limits would allow neural data to inform an investigation while reducing the risk that uncertain measurements are given more weight than they can support.
The authors also frame access to neural data as a mental-privacy and cognitive-freedom issue. They argue that Iran’s legal system should require explicit consent and a specific, limited judicial order before such data are accessed, while creating standards to assess their scientific reliability.
Evidence and caveats
This is a descriptive-analytical, interdisciplinary legal study rather than an experiment or a test of neural recordings in criminal cases. The authors draw on library resources, domestic laws and scientific articles to examine scientific, legal and jurisprudential questions. The excerpts do not report a new dataset, measured accuracy rate or courtroom validation of any neural technology.
The conclusions are focused on Iran’s criminal evidence system and its legal and jurisprudential principles. They also reflect the current state of the technology as described by the authors; the proposed rules and committees are recommendations rather than evaluated policies.
// Source
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