Emerging Frontier

Neurorights in the agentic university

AI agents in education increasingly observe what students do — keystrokes, gaze, attention, biometric reactions. Neurorights are the legal frontier that protects identity, mental privacy, free will and cognitive equity. Below is the sourced map every university leader should know.

Five rights to protect

Mental privacy

Brain data and inferred mental states must remain confidential by default.

Personal identity

Neurotechnology cannot dissolve the line between the self and external systems.

Free will

Decisions remain free from undue algorithmic or neurotechnological influence.

Equitable access

Cognitive augmentation must not deepen educational inequality.

Algorithmic non-discrimination

Bias in neuro/learning analytics is unlawful, not merely unethical.

Why this matters for universities

  • Online proctoring with biometric and emotion detection.
  • Learning analytics that infer attention, fatigue or motivation.
  • Adaptive tutors that nudge cognitive behaviour at scale.
  • Research on BCIs, neurofeedback and student wellbeing.

Primary sources

Authored by Dra. María Luisa Gómez Jiménez · University of Málaga0000-0002-3358-786X

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). You may share and adapt this material for any purpose, even commercially, provided you give appropriate credit and distribute your contributions under the same license.

Suggested citation: Gómez Jiménez, M. L. (2026). UniAgent.Lex — AI Agents in the Agentic University: A Regulatory Atlas. University of Málaga. CC BY-SA 4.0.

© 2026 Dra. María Luisa Gómez Jiménez · University of Málaga0000-0002-3358-786XCC BY-SA 4.0