Will Lie Detectors Ever Get Their Day in Court Again?
Bloomberg, in an article written by Matt Stroud, examined societal trust in lie detectors and detection deception and intent programs, such as AVATAR, created by UA Regents' Professor Jay Nunamaker and the team at the Center for the Management of Information at the Eller College.
Stroud writes, "The Avatar project is funded by the Department of Homeland Security and is still in a testing phase. But it’s designed to be used at ports of entry, borders, airports, detention centers, and anywhere else where lots of people need to be screened as quickly as possible. If someone’s found to act suspiciously, an agent on the ground will be summoned to investigate. 'This isn’t a lie detector,' Nunamaker says. 'We’re looking for signs of risk.' In fact, he says, looking for a foolproof lie detector may be impossible: 'Everyone we talk to wants to know, ‘What’s Pinocchio's nose?’ Well, that’s never gonna happen.'”