Smile! It's You-Better-Be-Candid Camera

Bleeding Edge

from the detect-this dept

Some researchers claim they’ve come up with yet another new lie detector system. This one uses a camera hooked up to a laptop (which sounds just like a system that we mentioned over a year ago) and determines how truthful you are by watching your facial muscles. The more interesting thing about this system, though, is that it claims to be able to determine “half-truths” as well as full blown lies. I’d like to see what the screen pops up when it determines “oh, that’s just a little white lie.” Of course, plenty of people are pointing out that this system (like most lie detection systems) really only measures a person’s fear of getting caught. What I’m more curious about, though, is the potential for surreptiously using such a lie detection system. Since you don’t need to hook anyone up to anything, but just film them, couldn’t you secretly film someone while asking them questions for the sake of checking their truthfulness later on?