Spanish police plans to extend use of its lie-detector while efficacy is unclear

https://algorithmwatch.org/en/story/spain-police-veripol/

by polm23 • 6 years ago

101 36 6 years ago

mkl955• 6 years ago

Spanish police has a history of struggling with technology. For instance, a hacking group was able to expose the personal data of 5400 police officers a few years ago, including password hashes, with some weak passwords among them [1]

[1] https://www.cybersecurity-help.cz/blog/131.html

throwaway0a5e• 6 years ago

A "lie detector" isn't "technology" it's an interrogation technique masquerading as technology. It's basically just a means of saving money because the guy who would be playing the bad cop can be out doing other cop things.

mkl955• 6 years ago

"Veripol works by identifying words and phrases that linguistic studies have shown to be identifiers of possible lies, Ms Queralt said. For example, using many adjectives or refusing to describe a scene are considered hints that a complainant is lying."

The article is about a sentiment analysis application used by Spanish police, and how trusting it as a lie detector could be a bit of a stretch. It could be argued that sentiment analysis and related techniques are not 100% bonkers, but it seems to be unclear at the moment.

Hokusai3• 6 years ago

Spain has a history of struggling with technology. Even with a very strong tech professional community the country has problems figuring out what to do with that incredible resource.

The reasons are economic. To build vacation apartments for locals and foreigners is a big business and the tourism industry is easier to understand and has less risk (until 2020 I guess) than the tech industry. So, politic and industry leaders are not interested in tech.

Luckily that is changing with many international companies creating offices in the country to take advantage of the existing talent and, as a side effect, inspiring more locals to work in the tech industry.

I love the country's easy tax collection system, and many other public technologies. But, there is still too many misconceptions.

I will not get into the historical reasons (also related to agriculture and politics) that made tech difficult to penetrate in Spain.

Anti-intellectualism also has been rampant in the arts. Many people equated being educated to understand art (literature, painting, wine tasting) and despise technology.

I am hopeful with a new generation growing to understand better technology, and if the current circumstances should have a positive side, to be wary of a tourism focused economy.

That police struggles with tech, is just on of many situations that older generations still struggle with a technology that learned to see as a lesser subject than others.

raxxorrax2• 6 years ago

Since western states were mostly hostile to such tech groups, the willingness to cooperate might be inhibited.

On the other hand there are quite a few reasons to despise tech in its current state because it is connected to larger predatory companies.

yokaze2• 6 years ago

I think, that doesn't do Spain totally justice, or maybe it depends on the region. Not to say that you are wrong, and a lot certainly can be improved, but a couple of things that impressed me (not being from Spain):

- Use of x.509 user certificates to access many government services online. - Getting a government ID right away at the appointment (from the police of all places) - FTTH 600Mbit/s symmetrical. Three days after ordering it. - Digital health record (At least in some regions)

But then, Spain has also some of the poorest regions of Europe. And from what I heard, aristocrats own large areas of land.

boomboomsubban• 6 years ago

This is hardly unique to Spain, we just saw BlueLeaks expose the password hashes of 29,000 Northern California police employees alone, other targets may have exposed more.

eznzt2• 6 years ago

Spanish police has a history of struggling with technology because someone once hacked an insurance cooperative for police officers? Now that's a leap

mkl955• 6 years ago

Other examples of cyber incidents are:

The time Anonymous hacked some unofficial Spanish police forums, leaking up to 11k records. [1]

The recent incident where a Zoom event called "Cybersecurity and online privacy" attended by Spanish police and civil guard members was hacked. After taking over, the attackers streamed child pornography. [2]

[1] https://www.abc.es/tecnologia/redes/abci-hackean-policia-nac...

[2] https://www.elespanol.com/omicrono/software/20200514/confere...

dontcarethrow2• 6 years ago

Phineas Fisher had a nice video* around that time. Wonder if same leak.

* https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oI_ZhFCS3AQ

mkl955• 6 years ago

This is another leak. Some or all autonomous communities in Spain have their own police (similar to state police in the US), with Catalan police being one of the largest.

This leak reminds me of the time a Russian group launched a bot campaign to destabilize Spain and support Catalan independence, with enough success to be called out by the Spanish defence minister [1]

[1] https://www.voanews.com/europe/spain-warns-russias-catalonia...

arbitrage• 6 years ago

The efficacy is not unclear. Polygraph is junk science.

9HZZRfNlpR• 6 years ago

This tool analyzing the words, not physiological indicators that is polygraph.

tumetab1• 6 years ago

The article is not about polygraph

raxxorrax2• 6 years ago

false insurance claims for phones have become a sport to some degree, but I would not accept to be scrutinized by an algorithm that can only ever calculate an approximation.

I hope cases where it says the accuser does lie are still investigated. Otherwise this would be a serious neglect from the state.

It also doesn't help in finding the perpetrators. I think this is money being wasted to be honest.

I think the criticism is particularly bad since it doesn't even address the issues of lie detectors. 'Bias' might work in a headline and for emotional discussion, but there is little substance to it as it cannot be measured.

ATsch• 6 years ago

Unrealiability can often be a feature to police, as it is with field test kits and drug dogs. The false positive rate makes them a good tool to provide plausible cover for further police action. By simply running enough unreliable tests or letting the dog sniff long enough, it is practically guaranteed that they can find at least one reason to justify their action.

Same thing with other junk science like bite mark forensics. If you need someone convicted, show it to 10 "experts" and one of them will say they match beyond reasonable doubt.

mseidl• 6 years ago

https://youtu.be/ScmJvmzDcG0

He did a great video about forensics.

Also, this on lie detectors...

https://youtu.be/nyDMoGjKvNk

alexgmcm• 6 years ago

In a twist of questionable logic, the researchers claim that, because about four in five robbery cases remain unsolved, the real number of false complaints must be higher.

There are no unsolved cases, just false complaints! The power of AI!

wongarsu2• 6 years ago

In reality only solving 1 in 5 reported robberies probably means at best one in two robberies even gets reported to police. Unless you need a police report for an insurance payout, what's the point in going through the hassle of reporting the crime if it's unlikely to lead anywhere.

bluntfang• 6 years ago

Imagine going to your Product Director at Startup with this information and saying "Oh, those customers just aren't real. We don't need to worry about them". You would be probably be put on probation immediately on track to be remediated.

tsss• 6 years ago

Of course they do, it gives them a good pretext to abuse their power even more than they already do.

weinzierl• 6 years ago

This comes quite unexpectedly. I resist the joke about the Spanish Inquisition.

jjones2• 6 years ago

What will these crazy cop organizations think of next?

tareqak• 6 years ago

I wonder what a diagram of incentives and responsibilities of a contemporary police force would look like.

In terms of responsibilities, there is actual enforcement of the law, and there is investigating crimes (there maybe more responsibilities too).

A lie-detector would be a part of the "investigating crimes" section. One could argue that it is a "labor-saving device", but a similar argument can be made for it being an "evidence-creation" device. However, both characterizations yield a common concern: the outcome.

What are the outcomes of a criminal investigation?

For each outcome, what are the costs and who pays each cost? Is that cost the desired cost given the outcome?

True positive

True negative

False positive

False negative

Given we are talking about crimes, there may be more than one way to get to each of the four outcomes above.

Spanish police plans to extend use of its lie-detector while efficacy is unclear

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