Your brain waves are up for sale. A new law wants to change that.

Natasha Schull, a cultural anthropologist and associate professor at M.I.T., demonstrates ‘Muse: the brain sensing headband’ in Cambridge, Mass., on April 15, 2015. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis just signed a bill that, for the first time in the U.S, extends personal privacy protections to data generated by people’s brain, spinal cord, and the network of nerves that send messages to and from the rest of the body. — The New York Times

Consumers have grown accustomed to the prospect that their personal data, such as email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, are being collected and often resold by the apps and the digital services they use.

With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming ever more intimate. One headband serves as a personal meditation coach by monitoring the user’s brain activity. Another purports to help treat anxiety and symptoms of depression. Another reads and interprets brain signals while the user scrolls through dating apps, presumably to provide better matches. (“‘Listen to your heart’ is not enough,” the manufacturer says on its website.)