Use of the Polygraph in Australia and Canada
By Russ Warner, VP Marketing –
Like the U.S., Australia and Canada also have laws governing the use of the polygraph on employees.
It’s true that dishonesty, deception, and corruption affect all countries, whether at the individual level or at the societal level — and in the form of business, political, or human rights issues.
No nation is unaffected by the costs of corruption. In fact, corruption is a US$2.6 trillion worldwide problem annually.
With that in mind, it’s interesting to see so many different tactics used to legislate or to implement lie detection technologies.
The Polygraph in Australia
In Australia, law limits the use of the polygraph. For example, New South Wales (NSW) has strict laws about the use of the polygraph and the 1983 Lie Detector Act prohibits or restricts their use in specific situations.
NSW employees are protected and cannot be subjected to a lie detector test. In other Australian states, employers may offer the test if the employee has consented, and it is only recommended if there’s been a specific act of deception and there is reasonable cause to believe the employee may be the culprit.
The Polygraph in Canada
In Canada, employees cannot be subjected to a polygraph test for any reason. And they cannot be asked to submit to a test.
Ed Canning, employment lawyer, indicated, “The Employment Standards Act of Ontario prohibits anyone governed by that legislation from requiring, requesting, enabling or influencing, directly or indirectly, an employee to take a lie detector test.” The consequences of violating this act include having to compensate your employee for such a request.
Polygraph Test Accuracy
Polygraph technology has been around for decades. The computerized polygraph came to market in 1991. Under the right circumstances and with a skilled examiner, the polygraph can be highly accurate at detecting deception. The best use case is a single topic interrogation.
Unfortunately, some of the challenges include:
- Interactions prior to the test, between the examiner and the subject, can affect the outcome.
- The examiner must rely on subjective interpretations of the measurements.
- Some guilty individuals have been able to successfully deceive the examiner.
- Innocent people that react poorly to questions can be labeled deceptive.
- With specialized training, countermeasures have been used by deceptive individuals to defeat the test.
On the other hand, EyeDetect™ has been shown to be 85% accurate in screening large numbers of individuals for issues such as theft, bribery, robbery and drug use. Unfortunately, lying causes physiological changes in the brain. Fortunately, those changes are involuntary and cannot be hidden by most examinees. As a result, they can be measured and tracked.
