Lies, Eyes and AI
Chief Scientist Dr. John Kircher of Converus joined a group of deception experts for a episode of “Through the Wormhole” with Morgan Freeman. Kircher demonstrated the newest player in the deception detection arena — EyeDetect — a technology with the potential to change the way employees and job candidates are screened for honesty.
The pupils of our eyes are terrible liars.
Scientists have long known this. Our pupils widen ever so slightly when we’re being deceptive. The change is so minor — fractions of a millimeter — that the average person would never notice.
But now a Utah-based company called Converus has a test that uses a camera to track eyes and sense deception. The technology, called EyeDetect, is gaining popularity as a more affordable, less biased version of a polygraph exam, which has long been the gold standard for detecting lies.
The eyes are the window of the soul,” said Juan Becerra, an investigator at Panther Security and Investigations. He used to work with polygraphs at the FBI and now uses EyeDetect. “This is something that’s revolutionary and that’s going to change the entire deception detection field.” EyeDetect, which launched in 2014, is used today in 34 countries as part of job interviews and corporate investigations. Latin American banks, for example, use the technology to determine if their tellers can be trusted. Research has shown the accuracy rates of EyeDetect and polygraph are similar, both nearing 90%.
How does it work?
A person taking an EyeDetect exam sits at a desk and answers true-or-false questions on a tablet. An infrared camera tracks eye movement, blinking and pupil dilation. After 30 minutes, an algorithm scores their deceptiveness on a scale from zero to 100.
While the program intimated that EyeDetect may be used as a phone app for conducting on-the-spot infidelity tests, the main application for the technology today is for pre-employment screening of job candidates and periodic review of current employees in areas where it’s legal to administer lie detection tests to job candidates or employees.
“Our technology allows organizations to create a culture of workplace integrity and to manage risk by ensuring that the most honest employees are hired,” said Converus President and CEO Todd Mickelsen. “It’s especially ideal for companies hiring someone for a position of trust, such as a police officer, the intelligence community or the banking industry.”
Converus now has authorized service providers in Latin America, including Mexico, Central America and South America. Mickelsen, Converus Science Team Member Dr. David Raskin and other company representatives regularly address groups across Latin America, with audiences ranging from university students in Mexico to polygraph examiners in Colombia to top corporations in Peru.
Lies, Eyes and AI
Chief Scientist Dr. John Kircher of Converus joined a group of deception experts for a episode of “Through the Wormhole” with Morgan Freeman. Kircher demonstrated the newest player in the deception detection arena — EyeDetect — a technology with the potential to change the way employees and job candidates are screened for honesty.
The pupils of our eyes are terrible liars.
Scientists have long known this. Our pupils widen ever so slightly when we’re being deceptive. The change is so minor — fractions of a millimeter — that the average person would never notice.
But now a Utah-based company called Converus has a test that uses a camera to track eyes and sense deception. The technology, called EyeDetect, is gaining popularity as a more affordable, less biased version of a polygraph exam, which has long been the gold standard for detecting lies.
The eyes are the window of the soul,” said Juan Becerra, an investigator at Panther Security and Investigations. He used to work with polygraphs at the FBI and now uses EyeDetect. “This is something that’s revolutionary and that’s going to change the entire deception detection field.” EyeDetect, which launched in 2014, is used today in 34 countries as part of job interviews and corporate investigations. Latin American banks, for example, use the technology to determine if their tellers can be trusted. Research has shown the accuracy rates of EyeDetect and polygraph are similar, both nearing 90%.
How does it work?
A person taking an EyeDetect exam sits at a desk and answers true-or-false questions on a tablet. An infrared camera tracks eye movement, blinking and pupil dilation. After 30 minutes, an algorithm scores their deceptiveness on a scale from zero to 100.
While the program intimated that EyeDetect may be used as a phone app for conducting on-the-spot infidelity tests, the main application for the technology today is for pre-employment screening of job candidates and periodic review of current employees in areas where it’s legal to administer lie detection tests to job candidates or employees.
“Our technology allows organizations to create a culture of workplace integrity and to manage risk by ensuring that the most honest employees are hired,” said Converus President and CEO Todd Mickelsen. “It’s especially ideal for companies hiring someone for a position of trust, such as a police officer, the intelligence community or the banking industry.”
Converus now has authorized service providers in Latin America, including Mexico, Central America and South America. Mickelsen, Converus Science Team Member Dr. David Raskin and other company representatives regularly address groups across Latin America, with audiences ranging from university students in Mexico to polygraph examiners in Colombia to top corporations in Peru.
