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Someday in the future, when you’re moving through airport security, you may be required to speak to the GK-1 machine before being allowed to pass. As you don a headset, the machine will ask you questions about your criminal intentions, and wait for you to utter your responses into a microphone. Software inside the machine will record your responses, scrutinize them for tell-tale signs of dishonesty, and flag you for further probing if thinks you’re a liar.
The GK-1 was developed by Nemesysco, a security outfit in Israel. It uses software to listen for involuntary tremors which arise in the voice of a liar, or so its makers claim. If you have too many tremors in your voice when the machine asks you whether you’re a drug smuggler, a terrorist, or some other type of disagreeable person, you’ll be “taken aside.”
From the product page:
Nemesysco’s Layered Voice Analysis (LVA) technology now allows us to do just that.
By having your subjects answer three to five yes-no questions, it is now possible to reveal their real intentions.
The manufacturer describes it as an “efficient, non-intrusive and user-friendly technique for threat identification.” Each question session with GK-1 lasts between 30-90 seconds, and according to Nemesysco’s CEO Amir Liberman, the false-positive rate is about 12%. Each unit is expected to cost between $10,000-$30,000.
GK-1 is intended for use in airport check-in areas, airplane boarding desks, customs checkpoints, border crossings, security stations, and drug smuggling investigations to name a few. As the manufacturer describes it, the unit sounds like something that might improve the effectiveness of security in some places, but there’s always a tradeoff in personal freedom. The thought of being confronted with such questions from a machine feels very Orwellian, particularly if every person is subjected to the test. Just because an individual is nervous or has something to hide, it does not mean they are breaking the law.
And much like a polygraph machine, a person who knows how these devices work can almost certainly defeat one using simple countermeasures. Perhaps the most obvious countermeasure is to pretend to be completely deaf… it would clearly be discriminatory to flag every deaf person for a search, yet a deaf person cannot take a test which is administered with sound. Aside from that, simply knowing that the machine measures anxiety may be enough to defeat it.
Incidentally, Amir Liberman is also the inventor of the lie-detecting telephone.
Further reading:
Manufacturer’s Product Page on the GK-1
Reuters Article on the GK-1
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Facinating, but I wonder how fair that really is? Also, with rebellious teens today, I can definatly see some strip searches coming.
Another thing which I wonder about is hygene. Where I work, headsets of any sort are non-returnable because of hygene reasons. How comfortable would you feel putting on an oversized headset after some flee infected dirt bag just wore it?
How about people that have a stutter? Can this beast tell the difference between a nervous tremor vs a stutter?
Problem with this in my opinion would be the detecting software. Software can be so buggy, just look no further then Microsoft to verify this. Some of the up and coming things in lie detection is the retinal scanning lie-detector, MRI and PET lie detectors. I think you guys did a piece on reading minds (brain fingerprinting?) which could also, someday, be used against you as a lie detector.
Nice potatoshop image, I think I have the same headset…
Not just fleas, but lice. :-(
a 12% false positive rate?
Hmmmmmm…..
so, on a 747, one could expect that 50 people would have to be taken aside and interrogated?
when did the burden of proof go from proving a suspect guilty to proving yourself innocent?
truly mind-boggling.
Niiiice photoshop job.
I doubt that will fly tho, Lie dectectors are way to circumstantial, im just being jittery about takling the test is enough to skew the results for most people.
Hogwash. “Voice Stress Analysis” has existed for years, and is even less accurate than “lie detectors”. Like the polygraph, if they measure anything meaningful at all, it’s only whether or not you’re a BAD liar. Good liars look you in the eye and lie like crazy, without feeling nervous or giving any cues. Bad liars get sweaty palms and quavering voices. I imagine the same thing also happens if one discusses a distressing event, like a recent accident or divorce, or if the subject is nervous for some other reason, like a really attractive interviewer.
If this becomes widely used, I’ll probably fly a lot less than I do now. I can’t imagine donning the headset , filled with fleas/lice/etc. as people have said above, just to be asked a question, “Are you a terrorist?”, replying “No” and being told I’m a liar and need to be asked a few more questions. Imagine going on a family trip and you/your brother/mother/father/sister are taken aside and you miss your flight or have to wait because a machine thinks that they are smuggeling or planning on blowing the plane up. Yes I can understand the good points, but everything seems to be working at the moment isn’t it? And I read somewhere before, I think on this site, that you’re not allowed to take nail clippers on board, yet they will allow a heavyset boxer for example, who, if he started drinking, could possible cause more problems? Why are we as a race so stupid sometimes?! In general I mean, not just the clipper/boxer senario.
I intend to take out Osama Bin Laden myself! – Geraldo Rivera
Haha loving the picture…the man is gorgeous!
12% false positives? So in other words, it’s completely useless.
Okay, so on a given day, say 10,000 people come through. The machine will say that 1200 of them, give or take about 40 on any given day (random sampling error) are lying. That’s assuming the machine works no worse than advertised.
One day, someone comes through who (1) Is planning something evil and (2) Very stupidly hasn’t practiced beating the machine.
Guess what. The machine will say about 1200 +/- 40 people are lying on that day, too.
But I’m sure the federal government will start mandating these things if enough pressure is put on them to make it look like they’re actually doing something about security. No doubt the manufacturer would lobby heavily for that outcome.
Arrgghhh…theres asains on every website isnt there!?!
Cant get away from them
Yea my intentions are none of their damn business. There purpose is to move me from one place to another. Personally I’d like my security to be my own problem. I dont trust morons to keep me safe. They have proven the really crafty buggers will always slip past them and then its all on me again. Last thing I want is to be stripped down of anything defensively useful just to claim the plane is safe. Hell they should give old lady’s hand guns and little kids a bowie knife just to setup a MAD situation :).
theres a whole parade of problems with this, most of them already stated, but i dont agree that its too personal, i mean, “are you a terrorist planning on killing hundreds of people?” is not a personal question at all. and if I WAS a terrorist i think the airlines should have the right to know. if they made these 100% accurate(impossible i know) and considerably shorter (30 secs a person would add up and you’re already hafta be there like 2 hours before your flight) i wouldnt mind. I got nothing to hide. and besides the guards there already ask far more personal questions, “What is your business in the states?” “Where are you coming from?” “Any livestock in your handheld carry-on?” ect