The augmented police officer: A design fiction study of perceptions of brain-computer interface use in law enforcement

Abstract

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are advancing from therapeutic applications in controlled environments to real-world deployments. Law enforcement represents a plausible early-adoption context, as when augmented with BCI they could access databases through thought, receive real-time situational analysis, or control systems with neural signals. Before such deployment occurs, understanding how both officers and citizens perceive this concept can guide design and policy decisions. This thesis explores how different stakeholders perceive the concept of BCI-augmented law enforcement. Using design fiction methodology, the study presents speculative BCI scenarios to three participant groups: researchers engaging through a role-play session, a police officer in semi-structured interviews, and citizens responding to an online survey. The design fiction, a narrative depicting a fictional police officer experiencing a mandatory BCI system pilot in his department, provided participants with a concrete speculative scenario rooted in established identity theory and cognitive rights frameworks, giving them the possibility to articulate concerns, values, and boundaries.

Findings demonstrate design fiction’s ability to effectively study a BCI technology which cannot yet be studied empirically. The design fiction narrative elicited strong engagement across all stakeholders, prompting participants to articulate concerns about technological dependency, mental privacy and professional ethics. The strongest reactions centred on mental privacy violations. A read-write threshold (reading brain activity is allowed, but writing is not) emerged from the interviews. This was something that the previous identity and mental privacy theories did not explore. All stakeholders predominantly perceived the BCI sceptically, not fully binarily but conditionally, stating that the BCI should have a turn-off feature, the possibility of individual calibration, transparency in its readings and protection against possible dehumanisation. Based on this literature study and results, this thesis contributes to understanding emerging BCI technology perception and offers guidance for designing ethical BCI products for law enforcement.