Rachel Bell: critical response

Rachel proves a focused ‘white paper’ like response to the MALINTENT technology and fox news article.

MALINTENT applies long established principles using a mix of old and new technologies.  It is well accepted that the human body and the human mind are mutually interacting phenomena each reciprocally influencing the other.  It has long been known that heart rate and blood pressure change under conditions of stress, including deceit and subterfuge.  The principle is simple, however applying the principle in a rigorous, scientific or diagnostic manner proves surprisingly problematic.  Nonetheless, in certain contexts, technologies like MALINTENT find fertile ground.

Lie detection technologies, based on the same basic principles as MALINTENT, have a long and controversial history lasting most of the 20th century.  In American courts, the 1923 Frye ruling established the principle that scientific testimony was only acceptable from “experts whose judgments were derived from principles in line with the consensus of the relevant scientific community” (Alder 2002 p. 8).  At present “[d]etecting deception is still very much a ‘best-guess’  game” (Ford 2006, p. 174; Andrewartha 2008).  However despite the inaccuracies which have had them largely banned from the court room, lie detection technologies have flourished in other contexts where the high legal standards of proof do not apply.  In the mid 20th century US for example, they were used enthusiastically recruitment and suspected fraud at work (Alder 2002, p. 17 ff).  Now, often using new technologies from emerging brain science, lie detection technologies continue operate beyond the court room.

A recent paper delivered at the British Forensic Psychology conference described and advocated the use of EEG technology in police questioning with uncritical evangelistic fervour (Raman 2008).  This example anecdotally illustrates Alder’s (2002) argument that lie detection technologies emerge at the intersections of popular convictions about science, perceived social need, and professional expertise.  Alder also hints that professional opportunism can play a role in the history of lie detection technologies (Alder 2002).  In this case Raman, a former professor of clinical psychology and head of the neuropsychology unit at the Indian National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences, works on a consultancy basis for police forces in Bangalore using ‘brain signature profiling’ as an interrogation aid.  Scientific expertise and charisma, combined with a police desire to expedite interrogation, has created a new 21st century site for the use of biometric technology to read the minds of human subjects.

In the case of MALINTENT I suggest that an influential social and political discourse may also have played a role in the emergence of this technology.  In the UK there have been allegation that police have abused “stop and search” powers by preferentially targeting ethnic minorities.  In the USA, the satirical offence of ‘driving whilst black’ captures the essence of a similar controversy about racial profiling and prejudice amongst the police and security services.  Whether in the UK or USA, authorities find themselves caught between the imperatives of public protection, minimal intrusion, and vulnerability to allegations of racial discrimination.  The high stakes of the ‘war on terror’ raise these issues afresh, not least in the context of airport security where MALINTENT might likely be employed.  MALINTENT is attractive because it promises a demonstrably objective means of identifying individuals for further questioning.  Despite a shortage of accepted peer-reviewed evidence about the accuracy lie-detection related technologies – which has mainly kept lie detection out of the courts – MALINTENT seems, like its predecessors, to have found an alternative favourable social context for development and deployment.

References
Alder, K. (2002). “A Social History of Untruth: Lie Detection and Trust in Twentieth-Century America.” Representations 80: 1-33.
Andrewartha, D. (2008). “Lie Detection in Litigation: Science or Prejudice?” Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 15(1): 88-104.
Ford, E. B. (2006). “Lie detection: Historical, neuropsychiatric and legal dimensions ” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 29(3): 159-177.
Raman, M. C. (2008). Brain electrical oscillations signature profiling of experiential knowledge. Annual Conference: BPS Division of Forensic Psychology. Edinburgh.