Brain scans have been under heavy research by numerous countries looking for advanced techniques for lie detection. In June, a woman in India was found guilty of murder by use of a brain scan that said she held “experiential knowledge about the crime that only the killer could possess,” a report from the New York Times said.
India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.
For years similar types of techniques have been used to try and peer into the brains of humans to try and decipher deception in the mind. Since September 11th, the United States has been funding and researching brain-based lie detection, but most countries still don’t know enough to have it used in a courtroom as evidence.
The technologies have been showing promise, but are overall still unusable in most court systems. The exception, of course, is in India, where in recent years judges have begun to admit brain scans. But it was only in June, in a murder case in Pune, in Maharashtra State, that a judge explicitly cited a scan as proof that the suspect held specific knowledge of the crime, sentencing her to life in prison.
The device used in the June murder trial was created by neuroscientist Champadi Raman Mukundan and is called a Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test or BEOS, according to a report from Slashdot.
The United States, which has been at the forefront of research for brain scan lie detection, has mixed feelings about India’s use in court. My own opinion is that this technology is truely incredible if it does indeed work. However, I agree with scientists in certain reports that say it isn’t reliable enough to be used in court, much less on a murder case where the sentence is life in prison.
I suppose that’s the difference between the United States and India. This topic could be discussed and argued all day, but for now, the United States is still researching and India has used it to sentence a woman to life in prison.
You have to wonder whether or not this technique is better than truth drugs, which have been used over the years. How reliable should a brain scan have to be to sentence someone? Does that person have a right to privacy over their memories? Could this bring an end to lying as we know it?
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