DMV Security Workshop 2026

Abstract: Commercial Brain Computer Interface (BCI) devices have become common, with both medical devices for use in controlled environments and "consumer" grade devices selling for as little as a few hundred dollars. Devices are used for a wide range of purposes including monitoring mental state, gaming, enhancing relaxation, as well as more medically-focused uses such as assistive communications and neurological disorder treatment. Consumer grade devices are completely unregulated, and little attention has been paid to the privacy of the data they collect, and the implications of that data. Vendor websites for BCI products talk about the privacy of the data they collect through the website, but are silent about the data from the devices. In this talk I'll survey the field, and identify some areas needing research.

Bio: Jeremy Epstein is co-director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute/Pacific Northwest National Labs ICARIS research center, and adjunct professor in the Georgia Tech School of Cybersecurity. Before joining GTRI and GT, he spent 13 years in government, mostly at the National Science Foundation. At NSF, he led the flagship cybersecurity program (Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace), and CRII, NSF's program targeted at junior faculty at non-R1 institutions, and led the startup of NSF's Convergence Accelerator program. Other government assignments included privacy policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, elections security at the US Embassy Jakarta, and privacy program management at DARPA. His research and program management efforts have focused on cybersecurity and privacy, with particular interest in elections and software security. He is a senior member of the Association for Computing Machinery and past chair of the ACM's US Technology Policy Committee. He is column head for the Communications of the ACM (CACM) technology policy column. He was associate editor in chief of IEEE Security & Privacy magazine, and founder of ACSA Scholarships for Women Studying Information Security. Jeremy earned a BS from New Mexico Tech, and MS from Purdue University, and is ABD from George Mason University. His hobbies include biking, baking, hiking, and playing with his adorable grandson & granddaughter.