The protection of the person in digital environments
Habeas Mentis is a social promotion association concerned with the protection of the person in digital environments and in systems capable of influencing attention, decisions and behaviour.
Discover the project
The Psychic Domicile
The personal sphere in which attention, judgements, intentions and decisions are formed.
02Cognitive Sovereignty
The ability to maintain an active role in one’s own attentional and decision-making processes.
03The Index
A research instrument to be developed and submitted for validation.
04The regulatory proposal
When the steering of a digital system becomes legally relevant.
A social promotion association
The central concepts of the project are the Psychic Domicile and Cognitive Sovereignty. Both are still being developed. Habeas Mentis does not present them as rights already recognised, nor as scientific instruments already validated, but as proposals to be defined and submitted for discussion with universities, institutions and professionals.
The project
What we do
The association develops study, discussion and awareness activities on the relationship between technology, individual freedom, cognitive health and the responsibility of those who design or use digital systems. The work involves legal, scientific, technological and educational expertise.
→The people and the areas of work
The Manifesto
The Manifesto Humanism of Attention expresses the cultural orientation of Habeas Mentis. It starts from one consideration: in the digital environment the protection of the person concerns not only data and confidentiality, but also the conditions in which attention, judgements and decisions are formed.
→Read the ManifestoThe Psychic Domicile
Psychic Domicile is the name Habeas Mentis proposes for the personal sphere in which attention, judgements, intentions and decisions are formed. The concept arises from the need to ask how this sphere is protected when a digital environment observes behaviour, derives predictions and modifies content or modes of interaction according to the user’s responses.
→Read The Psychic Domicile
The areas of work
→The research programmeThe research programme of Habeas Mentis concerns the definition of Cognitive Sovereignty and the study of the relationship between the person and persuasive digital environments.
→Read the programmeHabeas Mentis is working on a regulatory proposal on the Psychic Domicile. The aim is to define when the steering exercised by a digital system may become legally relevant, and which obligations may be required of those who design or use systems capable of observing, predicting and influencing behaviour.
→Read the proposalThe Cognitive Sovereignty Index is a research instrument that Habeas Mentis intends to develop and submit for validation. At present no validated and usable version of the Index exists.
→Read about the IndexNeuroathletics is an applied line of research currently being designed. The hypothesis is to use the sporting context to study the relationship between digital and attentional load, physiological recovery and the quality of decision under pressure.
→Read the lineHabeas Mentis devotes a specific area to minors because childhood and adolescence are phases in which attentional, emotional and decision-making capacities are still developing.
→Read the areaArticles & press
Articles discussing the Psychic Domicile and contributions written by members.
The Psychic Domicile, the new legal interest that AI asks us to protect
The concept of the Psychic Domicile enters the Italian public debate as a legal interest still to be defined.
Read on la Repubblica →
PressThe new frontier of hi-tech: cognitive processes, privacy risk and rights
Cognitive processes, profiling and rights: where the boundary of personal protection lies today.
Read on Il Sole 24 Ore →