The EU makes new invention: With a lie test to cross the border

Whoever wants to enter the EU will not, in the future, meet a man of flesh and blood at the border, but a police officer created by the computer this is the plan. The Avatar will check travel documents, such as travel passport, visa and evidence for the necessary financial means.

On the other hand, he will ask customs officers, such as the content of the suitcase or the cause of the trip. The answers will be recorded by a camera and analyzed. A new computer program will be able to distinguish in the faces of those interviewed, if they tell the truth, reports “DW”.

If the program suggests that the traveler speaks the truth, the follow - up control by a real employee is short. Otherwise, the following verification is wide. Next year, the computer programme will be tested at separate border crossings in Hungary, Latvia and Greece.

The border officer represented by the computer, including an automatic test for lies, is part of the RedControl research project, in which Hungarian police co-operate, Latvian border defence and Leibnis Universitätät Hannover.

The goal is for EU entry controls to accelerate and become safer. Every year, 700 million people enter the EU, the trend is on the rise. Migrants and criminals who want to cross the border illegally are intended to be found more easily through the system.

Independent experts suspect this 4.5m-euro project will succeed. There is no scientific evidence that in facial and medieval expressions, lies can be identified, says Bennett Kleinberg. He's a professor at the Institute of Criminal Sciences at College London. With the technique you can only state whether the person is under stress or not, he says.

Stress is often inevitable on the road, for example, when you will arrive on an ongoing flight, or when you have small children with you, Kleinberg says. This leads to the danger that many people accuse you of lying at the border and of submitting to minor controls, although they have given sincere answers to the avatar. In a test test of 30, the program singled out 76 percent of the lies.

The main problem is the ethical aspect of communication between man and robot, says law science professor at Leibnyz Hannover University, Tina Krügel. When a person is asked by an avatar, he is in a situation unknown to him. It is important that a border official can respond properly to the person and take into account cultural background”, she says.

Test participation is voluntary. The results will eventually be forwarded to the European Commission, which will decide whether the detector will become part of the EU entry procedure.