Brain Scans as Lie Detectors

BBC News – Brain scans being misused as lie detectors, experts say.

And of course those who claim to interpret the scans will also call themselves experts. (Which leads us off to another conversation entirely)

I am troubled by the confounding of privacy and accuracy concerns here. Frankly if lie detection were actually possible I’d be strongly in favour of it and “privacy” be damned! And I suspect that some of the scepticism is exaggerated by those who just don’t like the idea and so want it not to work. But I am also pretty confident that for now they are right and that it will be a long time before any method of lie detection is ever proved to be reliable enough to use as evidence in court.

We do of course need to be sceptical but is there any more need to legislate against the practice than against the use of chicken entrails to evaluate a job candidate? In both cases perhaps the technology shouldn’t be forbidden but until evidence is provided that it actually does work any evidence of its use should be taken as valid grounds for a civil suit re unfair practices.

This entry was posted in psychology, social issues, technical issues. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *