Another Poor Security Device

This is the GK-1 walk through lie detector.

A new walk-through airport lie detector made in Israel may prove to be the toughest challenge yet for potential hijackers or drug smugglers.

Tested in Russia, the two-stage GK-1 voice analyzer requires that passengers don headphones at a console and answer "yes" or "no" into a microphone to questions about whether they are planning something illicit.

The software will almost always pick up uncontrollable tremors in the voice that give away liars or those with something to hide, say its designers at Israeli firm Nemesysco.

"In our trial, 500 passengers went through the test, and then each was subjected to full traditional searches," said Chief Executive Officer Amir Liberman. "The one person found to be planning something illegal was the one who failed our test."

What limitations to what can be asked will be required?
What are the reactions to a failure?

What actions happen to a failure that produces no evidence of an ability to actually perform the task?

Those that fail are taken aside for more intensive questioning and, if necessary, searches. Liberman said around 12 percent of passengers tend to show stress even when they have nothing to hide.

12% false positive is pretty high. Strikes me as unusable when you literally have thousands of passengers each day. What do they mean by more intensive questioning?

Then there is the thoughts on what happens to the data on people that fail the tests. Who retains the information, and what information do they keep? If you're not found to be a security risk, will your name and basic information be stuck in some federal database in any case? That thought makes me paranoid right away.

And, will a lie in this machine be considered a crime? How does the false positive relate to the criminal issues?

Nova Lounge has a blog entry for this topic as well.