Vermont residents now have a legal right to mental and neural data privacy, in force from the day it was signed. Governor Phil Scott signed H.814 (“An act relating to neurological rights and the use of artificial intelligence technology in health and human services”) into law on 18 May 2026, making Vermont the fifth US state with neural data legislation on the books after Colorado, California, Montana, and Connecticut. The enacted text is the 6-page version that passed the House, cut down from a 27-page original. That cut removed the consent requirement and the private right of action; the Senate then passed the House text unchanged.

What the enacted law actually does

H.814’s surviving provisions recognise a set of individual rights: mental and neural data privacy, freedom of thought, non-discrimination in the development and application of neurotechnologies, and protection from neurotechnological interventions of the mind. The act also directs Vermont’s Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council to report to the legislature by 15 January 2027, including on protections for neurological rights and the use of artificial intelligence in health care and human services. The combination is closer to a statement of principle plus a discovery exercise than to an enforceable regulatory regime.

Two original provisions were stripped in the House before the bill passed that chamber. The first was a written informed consent requirement before anyone could collect, record or share an individual’s neural data gathered from a brain-computer interface. The second was a private right of action that would have allowed individuals to sue companies directly over violations rather than rely solely on state enforcement. Attorney General enforcement and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation went with them. The Senate passed the 6-page House text unchanged before it reached Governor Scott.

How Vermont fits in the state-patchwork map

Vermont is now the fifth US state with a neural data statute, joining the patchwork that Inside BCI mapped on 3 April. The other four are structurally different from each other and from Vermont. Colorado, California, and Connecticut amended existing consumer privacy statutes to include neural data within “sensitive personal information.” Montana wrote a standalone neural data privacy law with consent, access, deletion, and destruction obligations. Vermont’s signed version is closer to Connecticut’s amendment in scope but lighter on enforcement; it most resembles a legislative on-ramp rather than a binding regulatory regime.

Vermont’s H.814 took effect on signing, and the Connecticut amendment follows on 1 July 2026. Within six weeks, two US states will have operationalised different versions of neural data protection, with neither providing the consent-based architecture that the Neurorights Foundation has been advocating for. The foundation, founded by neuroscientist Rafael Yuste, has been working in nine additional US states to pass similar legislation. Per Yuste’s public statement on H.814, Vermont becomes the ninth territory in the world with neural data legislation.

The federal context

The state-level activity continues against an effectively unmoved federal backdrop. The MIND Act introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer with Senators Maria Cantwell and Ed Markey in September 2025 directs the Federal Trade Commission to study how neural data should be regulated; it has not advanced through committee. The legal scholar most cited in the neural data privacy debate, Nita Farahany of Duke, has argued publicly that neural data should be treated as a distinct privacy category with bespoke rules rather than absorbed into existing privacy frameworks. Vermont’s signed version takes the absorptive approach.

Inside BCI’s 8 May coverage of CMS WISeR and the 7 May EU AI Act medical device omnibus delay both established that 2026 is shaping into a year of regulatory uncertainty for the neurotechnology category at the federal and supra-national levels. State-level activity is moving in the opposite direction, with successive statutes adding to the patchwork even as federal coordination remains absent.

What to watch

The first watch item is which of the in-committee states moves next. Massachusetts, Minnesota, Illinois, and New York are the four states currently tracked by the Neurorights Foundation as advancing legislation through 2026. Minnesota’s broader “neurodata rights” framework remains the most ambitious of the pending bills. The second watch item is the H.814 study itself. The substantive forward hook in Vermont’s version is what the commissioned study finds and recommends to the next legislative session. If the study returns with a recommendation for the consent rule and private right of action that were stripped from H.814, Vermont could move from on-ramp to enforceable regime within the next two years.

Correction, 30 September 2026: An earlier version of this article said H.814 would take effect on 1 July 2026, that it cleared the House at 32 pages, and that the Senate stripped its consent requirement and private right of action. Act 101 took effect on passage, on 18 May 2026. The bill was introduced at 27 pages and cut to 6 pages in the House before it passed that chamber; the Senate passed the House text unchanged. Vermont’s separate privacy law, Act 145 (S.71), signed on 16 June 2026, will require consent to process or sell neural data from 1 January 2028.

Sources

• Action Taken by Governor Phil Scott on Legislation, May 18, 2026 (Office of Governor Phil Scott)
• Vermont Governor Signs Bill Seeking Neural Privacy Report (Privacy Daily, 19 May 2026)
• Bill Status H.814 (Vermont Legislature)
• H.814 As Passed by the House, 6-page version (Vermont Legislature)
• Inside BCI: Vermont H.814 clears Senate, neural rights bill awaits Governor (7 May 2026)