High-density muscle recordings can contain detailed information about how people move and potentially about signals that never result in visible movement.

As these technologies become more capable, and as it becomes more and more feasible to collect such data over time from the same person, important questions arise about what information should be collected, how it should be interpreted and stored, who should have access to it and what it should be used for.

Alongside the scientific research, we will work with study participants and people from a range of backgrounds to explore these questions.

Consent and data use

Muscle data collected for one purpose may later become useful for another.

We want to understand how people feel about future reuse of their data, including use in new research, machine-learning methods or possible future clinical applications.

We will explore questions such as when additional consent should be requested and whether people prefer opt-in or opt-out approaches.

Privacy, intention and responsibility

Sensitive muscle recordings may contain activity associated with movements that were prepared or considered but never completed.

This raises questions about whether such signals should ever be interpreted as a person's intention and what should happen when a system incorrectly triggers an action or interprets an aborted movement.

Health information

Detailed or long-term muscle recordings might also reveal unexpected information about someone's health.

We want to understand what people think researchers should do if information of possible clinical significance is discovered unintentionally.

Identification and security

Another question is whether patterns of muscle activity could become distinctive enough to help identify an individual - effectively acting as a physiological fingerprint.

We will explore what this could mean for privacy, data security and future uses of EMG technology.

Hearing from users

These questions cannot be answered by researchers alone.

We will use focus groups and discussions with study participants and people from different demographic backgrounds to understand experiences, concerns and expectations around these technologies.