'Lie detectors not accurate enough'

Lie detectors are not accurate enough to screen US government workers for potential security risks, the National Research Council said today.

“Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy,” the council said in a report.

“National security is too important to be left to such a blunt instrument,” said Stephen Feinberg, chairman of the committee that prepared the report.

The research council, an arm of the US National Academy of Sciences, prepared the study at the request of the Energy Department. Under the law, workers in sensitive positions in department labs are subject to polygraph screening.

However, the study concludes when it comes to screening large numbers of people for potential spies or security risks, “polygraph testing is intrinsically susceptible to producing erroneous results.”

The FBI increased the use of polygraphs on its agents as a result of discovering a spy in its midst.