The Energy Department plans to end its across-the-board polygraph testing of job applicants and employees, according to a rule that department officials published in the Federal Register. The policy change becomes effective Oct. 30.

Some researchers say there have been no major physiological or technological advances in the past few years to justify the use of polygraphs for employee security screening at federal agencies. Opponents of polygraph testing have argued for years that DOE and other agencies should scrap such evaluations. Now, after ignoring studies that show that polygraphs are not reliably accurate, DOE has decided to decrease its reliance on such testing for screening prospective counterintelligence employees.

DOE screens employees using a computerized polygraph system to prevent insiders from leaking classified information to the country’s enemies. The department has been administering polygraphs to all employees, consultants and contractor employees before granting them access to sensitive information.

According to the rule, published Sept. 29, DOE will eliminate polygraph testing “for general screening of applicants for employment and incumbent employees without specific cause.” The change conforms to standard practices within the intelligence community and a National Academy of Sciences report, according to the rule.

The 2003 NAS report states that the polygraph’s accuracy in detecting security violators is not impressive enough to justify its use in employee screening. “Overall, the evidence is scanty and scientifically weak,” the final report states. “Our conclusions are necessarily based on the far from satisfactory body of evidence on polygraph accuracy, as well as basic knowledge about the physiological responses the polygraph measures.”

Stephen Fienberg, co-author of the NAS report and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Statistics and Machine Learning departments, said nothing has changed since the report’s release. “There hasn’t been a single published study that suggests that anyone can do polygraph testing better than our original assessment” of the existing research, he said.

Flaws in evaluation
The rationale for using computerized polygraphs is that an examinee’s lies will trigger a specific array of physiological responses that signal deception to the computer and examiner. But Fienberg said no evidence indicates the existence of an unambiguous physiological response that means someone is lying.