Neurocriminalistics in the Era of the Brain–Computer Interface: Balancing Investigative Effectiveness and Human Rights Protection in Light of the UNESCO Samarkand Recommendation

Abstract

Fifth-generation brain–computer interface neurotechnologies enable the instrumental registration of cognitive traces of crime, transforming the conditions of investigative practices. Brain fingerprinting, employing event-related brain potentials, allows the establishment of the presence or absence of specific information in memory without verbal mediation. The adoption of the first global neuroethical standard—the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Neurotechnology adopted on November 11, 2025 in Samarkand at the 43^rd session of the UNESCO General Conference—creates an international legal framework that has not yet been conceptualized in forensic and criminal procedural terms in post-Soviet and BRICS legal systems. The aim of this article is to substantiate “neurocriminalistics” as a new branch of forensic science and to develop a model of legal regulation of “neuroexpertise” in the criminal procedural law of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The research methodology combines comparative legal analysis of the regulatory frameworks of Uzbekistan, BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), Chile, the European Union and the United States; inductive generalisation of criminal neurotesting cases; functional analysis of investigative actions under the Criminal Procedure Code of Uzbekistan; and normative modelling of admissibility. The research contribution lies in five proposals: an instrumentally registrable ideational trace as an autonomous object of forensic research; the attributive gap between neurorecognised familiarity and evidentially relevant knowledge; the two-tier admissibility regime distinguishing orienting application in operational-investigative activity from procedural application in particularly grave cases; the “Samarkand Process” as an institutional mechanism for regional implementation; and “neuroexpertise” as an autonomous form of forensic examination.