My Experience With the New Lie Detector

Last week I was invited to a very secretive meeting by a software company that wants me "in" on the early stages of a new product: the legal lie detector. Now, they're very careful to never call it a lie detector, and they're very anxious to point out the differences between their product and the polygraph. But what it amounts to is a product which can get around the Employee Polygraph Protection Act.

It's mistakenly believed that the reason Congress passed the act was due to the unreliability of the lie detector. However, the primary reason that many congresspeople objected was that they felt it was an infringement on privacy rights. In my opinion, that is the biggest concern.

This new software is actually something that was developed by another government to combat terrorists. It has been repeatedly shown to be highly accurate. When initially tested, they screened 266 applicants for a job. Of those applicants, 27 scored as "high risk" and 199 scored as "low risk". The 27 were immediately pulled aside and subjected to additional testing using a polygraph machine and other tests. In the end, 89% of them admitted that they had made "material misstatements".

The 199 were hired. After a year, they were retested. A whopping 96% of them showed that there had been no deception or betrayal of the employer during that year of employment.

They wanted me to see a real demo that was applicable to me. So I took the test.

The test I took was structured as a screening tool for applicants for a telemarketing company. It's very convenient: people can be accurately tested over the telephone, with the software gauging the tones of the voice and making a judgement about what the applicant is feeling as they answer the questions. This is not technically detecting truth or lies. Instead, it is detecting emotion combined with other factors which indicate a subject may or may not be lying. It is this particular distinction which is key to the legality of the product.

Initially, they asked me to speak briefly about my day. They had the machine calibrated to my voice very quickly, and we moved onto the questions.

I was asked to relate a difficult customer problem I had encountered. I remembered this incident and re-told it. The second question was about how I solved the problem, and I told them what had been done. I answered a couple more questions. Then came the last question: if I knew another employee was stealing customer information and using it for fraud, would I report it? "Yes, immediately," I replied.

There was yet one more question that they could have asked (but didn't): "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" This is a tough one for me, because although it's a legal question, I believe that when someone has served their time, they should be allowed to continue to live their lives with impunity unless there's overwhelming evidence of recidivism (repeat offenders) in their particular area of crime.

When they analyzed my answers, the evidence came back showing that I was telling the truth. But I also got to see the data, and they explained each piece of it to me.

Being an emotionally charged person, my emotions consistently registered higher than what would be considered "normal". However, the voice fluctuations and rapidness of response indicated that I was telling the truth. My emotions averaged around 104% for each question (100% is average). But for the last question, my percentage shot up to 143%, with the rapidity of my response being the highest out of all the questions. Therefore, the auditor concluded, I was telling the truth but was very emotional about such a scenario. He was right.

Since this is not my particular area of expertise, I would be very interested in seeing what independant analysts thought of this product. However, from what I've seen, it's the wave of the future. And that is exciting from an employer's perspective, but frightening from an employee's perspective.

Applicants will no longer be able to exaggerate their importance in previous jobs. Employees will no longer be able to lie about why they're leaving the company in their exit interviews. There are myriad ways this product will enable the employer to accurately peer into the minds of their employees. But the potential for misuse is apparent. And the question remains, just as it did years ago: What about the individual's right to privacy?

And the other question is, what will my role in this be? I haven't decided yet.