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The Washington Post reports that lying may soon become a lost art as our digital, data-hoarding culture means that more and more evidence is piling up to undermine our lies. "The research shows the way lies are really uncovered is by comparing what someone is saying to the evidence," says Tim Levine,"and with all these news analytics that can be done, it's going to enable lie detection in a way that was previously impossible." For example in Pennsylvania, police are prosecuting a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted earlier this year after data from her Fitbit didn't match up with her story, Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument, instant messaging programs that archive digital conversations make it easy to look back and see exactly who said what -- and if it matches up with what a person is saying now. "Lying online can be very dangerous," says Jeff Hancock. "Not only are you leaving a record for yourself on your machine, but you're leaving a record on the person that you were lying to."
Even more alarming for liars is the incorporation of lie detector technology into the facial recognition technology. Researchers claim video-analysis software can analyze eye movement successfully to identify whether or not a subject is fibbing 82.5 percent of the time. The new technology heightens surveillance capabilities—from monitoring actions to assessing emotions—in ways that make an individual ever more vulnerable to government authorities, marketers, employers, and to any and every person with whom we interact. "We must understand that—at the individual level and with regard to interpersonal relations—too much truth and transparency can be harmful," says Norberto Andrade. "The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth will turn us into overly cautious, calculating, and suspicious people."
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Friday July 10 2015, @04:26PM
A) "Lie detection" is bollocks and is not even close to being admissible in court (except in the US, the morons!) - so taking any action based on "lie detection" is really just a way to get yourself into trouble. Yes, this includes polygraphs and all the other scaremongering rubbish about facial recognition etc.
B) This is the reason that I keep all emails, record things as helpdesk tickets, and generally demand things are emailed or - quite literally - they never happened as far as I'm concerned. All those vendor promises evaporate in the face of demanding an email saying so.
Lying about a crime is one thing, however, that's incredibly stupid.
But everyday lying in work is one of those inevitable things that you have to put up with. From "Oh, but I reported this to you last week" (Really? Where's the helpdesk ticket? None? Oh, so you didn't follow the proper problem-reporting policy? Strange, then, that nothing was done about it. P.S. I have emails from you before, during and after the claimed report and none of them mention a thing, strange that.) right up to "But it's your job to do so" (Actually, here's my contract, my job description, my clarification where I asked who was responsible for this - and that if it were me, I'd want it reflected in a new contract / payscale - and notes from various people above telling me that they'll find out and tell me).
Record everything. Because the one you don't record is the one that comes back to bite you on your backside through no fault of your own.
I've had a previous employer accuse me directly of taking far too much time off. We went through the official paperwork with various high-level people, found out I had never actually taken my full holiday entitlement throughout my entire employment and was actually owed something like 8 weeks over the various years (even with a large margin of error where I allowed recorded half-days and lates to count as entire days off - because I always knew I was going to win and didn't need to micro-record such things). And there was never any mention that I couldn't carry it over from year-to-year. Strange, that, that they hoist themselves on their own paperwork - when they finally dug out my contract to confirm the above, they also had to confirm that my notice period was... much less than 8 weeks. Bye!
I've had people say that they are experiencing IT problems, but no record of them, and in fact records to the contrary going back YEARS. Even down to private additions to my own tickets with time, date, quote, and test results that they never knew about whenever I heard a whisper that they were spreading rumours that something didn't work. Don't mind you reporting problems, but don't make up crap just to then accuse me of not doing my job, especially just to avoid work, or to cover up not doing your own job!
Conversely, I've had people try to tell me that they've used this system all the time and done this and that and logged on and tested this for me. Strange that the login logs, the profile last-modified date, or even just the last device check-in date etc. actually indicate that that's rubbish. One tried to get away with saying the "new" computers didn't work, but had never actually even tried to turn one on in over six months. And, yes, I know they weren't just faulty and not recording because I went out of my way to check on a regular basis - and all my power-on's and logins were there in the event logs, even failed logins, even offline logins, etc.
I've had suppliers supply hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equipment only to miss out huge and expensive vital components. Shame that my emails (that I religiously kept and tagged) specifically mention them being included so that, months later, when it comes to a head and the CEO and CFO are invited to a recorded meeting with my bosses, that I can pull out any number of timestamped and replied-to emails, quotes, invoices, etc. that CLEARLY STATE that component is included, but was never delivered and they then cannot continue deny knowing anything about it. That one cost them the project, the costs of the missing equipment, the entire contract and any future orders from us.
There's a reason that I keep EVERY email. Deleting email is quite wasteful in these days of TBs of storage. Keeping it not only proves your case more often than not, but also provides honesty in your own responses - I can't bullshit about what I've said myself in an email any more than other people can! (It also greatly aids spam-filters to have such a large base of emails to work from, I feel).
Honestly, lying when there's even a remote possibility of being found out is not only stupid, but potentially career-suicide as well.