--- title: "This AI Lie Detector Flags Falsified Police Reports" description: "Spain is rolling out an AI lie detector called VeriPol at many of its police stations, which uses machine learning to flag false police reports." date: "2018-10-29" modified: "2018-10-29" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/lie-detector-false-police-reports" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "lie detector" - "the digest" - "veripol" --- # This AI Lie Detector Flags Falsified Police Reports ![Spain is rolling out an AI lie detector called VeriPol at many of its police stations, which uses machine learning to flag false police reports.]() *\Image: Tag Hartman-Simkins\* ## Minority Report Imagine this: You file a police report, but back at the station**,** they feed it into an algorithm — and it accuses you of lying, as though it had somehow looked inside your brain. That might sound like science fiction, but Spain is currently rolling out a [very similar program](), called VeriPol, in many of its police stations. VeriPol's creators say that when it flags a report as false, it turns out to be correct more than four-fifths of the time. ## Lie Detector VeriPol is the work of researchers at Cardiff University and Charles III University of Madrid. In [a paper]() published earlier this year in the journal *Knowledge-Based Systems*, they describe how they trained the lie detector with a data set of more than 1,000 robbery reports — including a number that police identified as false — to identify subtle signs that a report wasn't true. ## Thought Crime In pilot studies in Murcia and Malaga, [*Quartz* reported](), further investigation showed that the algorithm was correct about 83 percent of the time that it suspected a report was false. Still, the project raises uncomfortable questions about allowing algorithms to act as lie detectors. *Fast Company* [reported earlier this year]() that authorities in the United States, Canada, and the European Union are testing a separate system called AVATAR that they want to use to collect biometric data about subjects at border crossings — and analyze it for signs that they're not being truthful. Maybe the real question isn't whether the tech works, but whether we want to permit authorities to act upon what's essentially a good — but not perfect — assumption that someone is lying. **READ MORE:** [Police Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Spot Written Lies]() \[*Quartz*\] ***More on lie detectors: [Stormy Daniels Took a Polygraph. What Do We Do With the Results?]()*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()