A trial of headbands designed to monitor pupils' concentration levels has been suspended at a primary school in eastern China following parental complaints about privacy and potential misuse. The device, which tracks brainwaves and transmits data to a computer system, was used at Xiaoshun Central Primary School in Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province.
According to state-run newspaper Beijing News, some data was shared with parents, but a teacher named Zhang stated that the full data was not disclosed to them. Zhang claimed the experiment had been running for a year, with students reporting no side effects, and that data was also transferred to a company server. “All we are doing is providing some assistance for the students to see how much they are paying attention,” Zhang said, noting improvements in concentration.
The u-shaped headband, worn across the forehead, was developed by US-based BrainCo and its Chinese partner Zhejiang BrainCo Technology Co Ltd, co-founded by Kong Xiaoxian, a former PhD student at Harvard's Center for Brain Sciences and an alumnus of the school. A representative from the Chinese partner, also surnamed Zhang, said students wore the devices twice a week for 30-minute sessions during concentration training courses.
Parental concerns have grown amid widespread use of smartwatches and other tracking devices among Chinese children, with questions over data access and usage. A new regulation from China's Cyberspace Administration, effective 1 October, mandates encryption of children's online information, parental consent for data collection, and user agreements.
Yang Zhangpeng, director of public relations at Zhejiang BrainCo Technology, told the Guardian that the government's decision to halt the trial may be partly due to media pressure. He clarified that the data is stored only on the school's database, not the company's, and that teachers can only view average figures, not individual data. BrainCo representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
