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INFORMATIVE FACTS, CASE STUDIES, CHARTS & VIDEOS |
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| Background Information - What is a polygraph? |
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The polygraph test, known popularly as “lie detector test”
has been in use in the United States for almost a hundred years. Recently, US practitioners called it psychophysiological detection of deception or credibility assessment. They all refer to the same thing. Over the last few decades, polygraph tests
have proven to be one of the most powerful, robust and useful scientific tools in criminal investigations and
personnel screening. It is routinely used in almost all major investigations in advanced countries employing
this forensic tool. Among the most important applications of the polygraph test are counter-intelligence, counter-espionage
screening, counter-terrorism and combating corruption. In recent years, polygraph tests are increasingly used for sex offender
testing and monitoring. Prosecutors routinely make use of polygraph tests to decide whether and which legal charges to
file.
It is well publicised that agencies like the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, US Secret Service and the US
Department of Defence etc employ polygraph tests for investigations and screening their own staff and contractors. There is also widespread
use of private polygraph tests on spouses, fiancees, girlfriends, boyfriends etc suspected of cheating brought about or exposed by social networking
websites and smart mobile devices. Today, the polygraph test is used in more than 56 other
countries world-wide, including China, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Korea, Japan, Israel, Australia, Canada, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Romania, Russia,
Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom, Colombia, the Middle East etc. The U.S. with between 3
and 4 thousand active polygraph examiners in the government and private polygraph companies is undoubtedly home to more
examiners than any other countries. In the Asia-Pacific Region, Singapore probably rate the highest in terms of widespread
usage by government as well as private sectors.
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Polygraph Applications Overview |
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In Singapore, the polygraph was first introduced by
the Ministry of Home Affairs more than 34 years ago. In May 1977, Mr Koa Fung Chew, then an Inspector of Police and a senior specialist
interrogator was sent to the American Institute of Polygraph Technology and Forensic Psychophysiology, USA
for a 15-week training programme. Upon his return, the first Forensic Polygraph Laboratory was set up at the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Since then, forensic polygraph testing has gained widespread usage - in practically all government
law enforcement agencies - the Singapore Police Force, Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, Ministry of Manpower, Prisons Department, Singapore Customs etc, security and intelligence agencies and the military as a scientific tool for personnel screening, investigations and interrogation. The
Prosecutor's Office also uses them to decide on charges to file.
In November 2001, after his retirement as a Superintendent of Police, Mr Koa Fung Chew founded Polygraph
Investigative Services, a government-licensed private polygraph company providing worlwide premier polygraph testing and training. Local as well as regional private
companies have engaged its polygraph testing services to help solve difficult workplace crimes and screen employees.
Polygraph
Investigative Services undertakes extensive polygraph employee screening for local and foreign retail businesses as well as manufacturing industries where, despite
tight security measures - theft, corruption, counterfeiting etc commited by employees in collusion with syndicates, pose a serious challenge. Foreign government agencies
have also engaged Polygraph
Investigative Services to assist in their criminal investigation, training and setting up of polygraph testing
facilities. Polygraph Investigative Services conducts polygraph tests for clients from Asis-Pacific Region - Malaysia,
Indonesia, China, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Brunei, the Middle East - Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia etc. These polygraph tests were carried out locally in Singapore as well
as in countries where our clients are located.
More Information On Our Services ...
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How Does A Polygraph Work? |
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A polygraph (popularly referred to as a lie detector) is an instrument
that measures and records several physiological indices such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity
while the subject is asked and answers a series of questions. When conducted by a competent and experienced polygraph examiner,
deceptive answers will produce physiological
responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers. Please click the link below to see the polygraph
chart of an actual test:
Sample Polygraph Chart
At the outset, the examiner obtains a
complete background information on the case. The polygraph test or examination proper consists of 3 phases. During
the first phase, the pre-test phase, the examiner discusses with the subject the test issue , thoroughly reviews all of
the test questions that will be asked during the test,and assesses the subject's emotional and physiological suitability
to undergo the polygraph test.
The testing phase consists of a series of tests where the subject's physiological responses are recorded as the subject
answers a set of questions reviewed earlier. The polygraph theory, is based on psychophysiological principle, is
that when the subject hears a question which he or she intends to lie, the brain interpretes and triggers automatic and
uncontrollable phsiological changes captured by the polygraph.
During the post-test phase, the examiner reviews all test
data obtained and interprets the polygraph charts, from which the examiner will reach one of 3 conclusions – that the
subject is telling the truth; that the subject is not telling the truth; or that the results are inconclusive. Upon
completion of the test a verbal report will be given to the client, followed by a written report which consists of a synopsis
of the case information, a list of the relevant test questions, the subject's answers, and the examiner's opinion as to the subject's
truthfulness or deception.
Polygraph tests are strictly voluntary in nature and do not violate a subject's
human rights. Each polygraph test normally lasts between 1.5 to 2.5 hours. Please click the button below to view a video on
how the polygraph works.
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How Accurate Is The Polygraph Test? |
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There are now about 25 research studies available on the
accuracy of the polygraph tests. In ‘real life’ cases, researchers have found it very
difficult to assess the accuracy of polygraph examination because the ‘ground truth’ criteria
are often lacking i.e. it is not possible to find a representative sample with which one can establish with
certainty who is and is not actually telling the truth. Based on the studies now available, experts assess
the accuracy of polygraph examinations administered by a competent examiner to be about 90%. Studies have also
shown that the level of skills and experience of the examiner plays an important part in the accuracy of the
examination. Comparative studies have shown that polygraph tests yield
an accuracy that equals or exceeds that of many other forms of evidence. In one study, it was shown that
polygraph tests produced an accuracy that was comparable to results obtained by document examiners and fingerprint
analysts, and exceeded that of eyewitnesses.
In many ways, seeking a good polygraph examiner is similar to seeking a good surgeon.
It pays to get a surgeon with a good track record although you may pay more. Similarly, an examiner with a good track record and reputation
increases your probability of success in arriving at the truth and avoid mistakes.
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Is the Polygraph Test Result Admissible In Court? |
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Although the polygraph test has been in use in the United
States for almost a hundred years, this technique is relatively new in the Asia Pacific region. There
is no court ruling on the admissibility of polygraph evidence in most of these countries, including Singapore.
In Japan, polygraph evidence is admissible in court. In the United States, most states permit polygraph test
results to be used as evidence where parties have agreed to their admissibility before the examination is given,
under the terms of a stipulation. In one US state, New Mexico, polygraph evidence is admitted in the same way
as other scientific evidence. |
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How Does The Polygraph Test Serve As An Investigative Tool? |
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'Smart’ offenders commit crimes in such a manner as to cover their
tracks and make it difficult to identify the culprit or to prove guilt. Sophisticated crooks know how the
authorities operate and they resort to countermeasures. In the workplace, the culprit could be one of many
staff working in an office but there are no leads. Such a scenario is typical of many crimes committed.
Routine police investigations in such cases may end in a ‘dead end’ and the employer winds up having to
live with the uncaught offender. Investigators find themselves in situations where there is a complete lack of
information/evidence, information gaps or only circumstantial evidence. Often, it is a case of one man’s
words against another. At other times, different people give grossly different versions of the same event or a
person gives an account that cannot be independently verified. In such situations, the polygraph test is the most
effective means to determine the credibility of a person’s statement. It expeditiously and accurately guides
the investigators to channel resources in the right direction by exonerating the innocent and narrowing down suspects or
identifying the perpetrator.
In law enforcement scenarios, the interviewer is often faced with a situation
where a suspect keeps changing his account and leading the interviewer up the garden path. The polygraph is the most
effective tool against such an interviewee. Investigative resources can then be focussed on gathering evidence on the culprit.
Many a times, this leads to the guilty confessing his crime through a combination of skilful interviewing and polygraph testing.
On the other hand, the polygraph test can also be used for less complex cases like determining the
credibility of the statement of a witness, informer,suspect or an accused person in any investigation, or just an individual
involved in any dispute, including marital or fidelity issues. Over the years, Polygraph Investigative
Services has successfully helped clients to solve cases involving employee theft, commercial fraud, corruption,
violent crimes, drug offences, industrial espionage, and threats to corporate security.
One of the most difficult type of cases to solve is the "inside job" e.g. espionage, collusion between
employees and outside criminal syndicates, between employees in different internal departments and between senior and junior staff, terrorist acts committed with insider help etc. Here Are Some Interesting Cases Handled by Polygraph Investigative
Services which would have otherwise gone unsolved...
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How Does The Polygraph Pre-Employment Screening (Background Check) Help Secure My Business? |
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While most job applicants are honest and hardworking individuals, some of
them try to gain a job by misrepresenting their background, employment history, education, experience, and abilities
on their resume and application. A recent research done by the National University of Singapore Business School showed that
82.3% of respondents misrepresented or exaggerated their abilities in their resumes. Consequently, some individuals are hired who eventually put the employer, co-workers,
and members of the public at risk because of their inappropriate behaviour. Many employers do not even institute pre-employment background checks on their employees
because they do not realise its importance before it is too late. For instance, recent news reports surfaced cases of
under-aged domestic maids falsifying their age by using forged documents provided by sponsors to obtain employment in Singapore and other countries.
Some employers rely on perfunctory screening methods like interviewing, checking with characters referees and past employers which are inadequate, especially for positions of trust.
Furthermore, conventional methods for background checks cannot be used to screen foreign employees.
Even for organisations with access to
criminal and other official records, they find that such records are inadequate. For every crime solved, there are many
others which remain unsolved or undetected. It is for this reason that many
well-known organisations like CIA, FBI, US Department of Defence and private sector organisations rely on polygraph
pre-employment screening. Polygraph screening often reveals reliable information not obtainable by any other
means. These include concealing/falsifying background information or qualifications, criminal records, undetected
crimes like theft from previous employers, fraud, corruption, drug offences, sexual crimes, violent behaviour, membership of
undesirable or subversive groups and other unsuitable behaviour. According to a Washington Post news report, the polygraph
is a vital component of FBI's security program. The FBI now conducts about 8,000 polygraph tests each year, most of which
involve current employees, applicants and contractors. All applicants and new employees undergo a polygraph at the FBI,
and nearly every employee -- including the director -- is subject to a new test every five years.
Take A Tour of our News Gallery On World-wide Usage of Polygraph
With heightened security as a result of the September 11 attack, it is even more compelling for organisations,
which are potential targets to consider polygraph screening to guard against infiltration or sabotage. The killings of 12 army personnel
at Fort Hood, Texas (CNN report dated 7 November 2009) and 7 CIA and one Jordanian operatives at the hands of a terrorist double agent
at a US base in Khost, Afghanistan (CNN report dated 5 January 2010), and the botched attack on an airliner bound for
Detroit (CNN report dated 27 December 2009) and the numerous homicide bombings involving "inside" help continues to highlight
the increased sophistication of the adversaries and the limitations of intelligence gathering and "connecting
the dots". The greater use of the friendly polygraph in personnel screening as a complement other methods, would have
increased the effectiveness many fold in pre-empting such incidents.
Polygraph Investigative Services looks into the different requirements of individual
clients and develop customised screening programmes to meet individual needs.
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How Does The Polygraph Periodic Screening Help Secure My Business? |
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Periodic polygraph employee screening is akin to an organisational
‘health check’ to detect workplace crimes and malpractices early, before the cumulative effect results
in considerable financial loss, damage to reputation or even bankruptcy. A typical scenario is that the thief starts
off with stealing a small amount. The boss thinks that it is not worth sending his staff for polygraph tests. He tries
to improve his control measures. The thief gets bolder and eventually ends up stealing a huge amount and also getting
other staff involved. Unfortunately, many of our clients come to us for help only after they are hit hard.
Security and intelligence agencies in
advanced countries use it for counter-espionage screening after they are plagued by spy scandals. With the increasing reliance on computer technology
and the Internet, computer crime has become a major concern among large corporations and law enforcement agencies.
Security systems, internal controls and audits are not fool-proof to prevent computer and other workplace crimes like
theft, fraud, corruption, collusion with vendors/suppliers, sabotage, theft of corporate or state secrets etc.
There is a saying that humans are inherently greedy animals and our hunger knows no bounds.
Studies have shown that employee theft in retail businesses are rampant despite security measures
like CCTV cameras and other control measures. In the US, over 50 billion dollars are lost each year to employee theft.
75% of employees stole at least once during their careers and at least half of these 75% stole multiple times. Clearly,
many business cannot continue to function in the face of such losses.
From time to time, one learns from the media about massive accumulated financial losses suffered
by organisations as a result of employee theft, which went undetected for long periods of time. Most of these
crimes are detected by accident. It is more and more apparent that corporate fraud is becoming a real growth industry of
the 21st century. In the last few years, numerous local and foreign banks in Singapore fell victims to theft of millions
of dollars by their own staff. In 2000, an airline staff in Singapore was convicted of embezzling a staggering sum of $35m over
13 years. In Singapore's largest case of commercial fraud, a senior staff of a local brewery was convicted in 2004 of
swindling 4 foreign banks of $114m over a four-year period. In 1995, a deputy chief executive at the Public Utilities Board was
jailed for 14 years after he was convicted for taking $13.9 million in kickbacks in Singapore's largest graft case. In June 2010,
the Singapore Land Authority was hit by a $12 million fraud case involving 2 of its senior staff.
Bunker Corruption: The bunkering industry is particularly vulnerable to corruption. In late 2001, bunker surveyors from more than a dozen Singapore companies were
convicted of corruption. The bunker surveyors were bribed to overstate the quantity and / or quality of fuel supplied to vessels
by employees of fuel suppliers. Since then, Polygraph Investigative Services have been retained by Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) accredited bunker survey companies and ship charterers
to conduct independent polygraph tests on surveyors, cargo officers etc whenever there are significant disputes over the figures or where corruption is suspected. Clients from Singapore, Malaysia, and the Middle East, including UAE have sought our
services to conduct lie detector tests on their bunker tanker cargo officers and bunker surveyors.
See Actual Charts of A Screening Polygraph Test on A Bunker Surveyor ....
In Singapore, the well-publicised case of the Football Association of Singapore using polygraph
screening of players and match officials in the S-League to detect or deter corruption, is an example of this application.
A similar match-fixing scandal in South Korea's K-League uncovered in June 2011 involving top players resulted in the use of
polygraph testing. In Taiwan, high level spy scandals in recent years have resulted in the increase in usuage of the polygraph for periodic screening.
Learn More About This And Other Applications
Corporate fraud can strike any company, anytime. Contrary to popular belief, corporate fraud
happens to good companies and effective managers. Our decades of experience in polygraph personnel screening provides
organisations with an effective proactive means to detect and/or deter such crimes. Through in-service polygraph
testing, we help businesses identify the dishonest employees and also find out how much they have stolen so that corrective
action can be taken. The pull of money is just too great. Experience has taught us that most people will steal
if they think that they can get away with it. For many companies the time to act is now; for some, now is too late.
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Can Nervousness Cause An Innocent Person To "Fail" The Test? |
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It is quite common for an examinee, whether innocent or guilty,
to feel nervous during a polygraph test, especially if it is the first experience. It is no different from
a job interview or taking a school examination. When administered by a competent and experienced examiner,
nervouness should make no difference to the test. Their are certain testing protocols built into the process
to take care of nervousness. |
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Will The Results Be Affected If The Examinee Knows The Technique? Can Such
A Person Beat The Test? |
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No, there is no effect on the test results even if an examinee knows the
technique, if the test is conducted by a competent examinee. Over the years, we have conducted many lie detector tests on
subjects who were trained in the technique and the results turned out to be no different from an ordinary man on the street.
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Are Polygraph Tests Meant For Criminals? |
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No, polygraph examinations are meant for people from all walks of life.
We have examinees ranging from suspects / accused involved in investigations to senior employees and CEOs who
are screened for promotions. In fact the large majority of examinees who turned up at our office "passed" their tests.
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Brain Fingerprinting Test |
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In a brain fingerprinting test, which is sometimes known as brain mapping, words, pictures or sounds describing
salient features of a crime, terrorist act or terrorist training are presented by a computer, along with other,
irrelevant information, that would be equally plausible for an innocent subject. Items are chosen that would be
known only to the perpetrator and to investigators, but not to the public or to an innocent suspect. The subject is
told which features he will see (e.g., the murder weapon), but is not told which item is correct (e. g, gun, knife, or
baseball bat). When a subject recognises something as significant in the current context, the brain emits a specific
brain response known as the P300 brainwave. If the record of the crime, terrorist act or terrorist training is stored
in the subject's brain, this response appears when the subject recognises the correct, relevant items. If not, then
the response is absent. The results are not affected by the willingness of the person being tested to tell the truth.
The recognition of specific information from the crime scene, terrorist training or of individuals at a training
camp can be detected. Therefore, investigators must have reliable, factual details from which to draw the information
that will be used to structure the Brain Fingerprinting test. A computerized mathematical
analysis of the data determines whether or not the subject has knowledge of the salient details of the crime, terrorist
act or terrorist training. |
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How Do I Follow-up To Book A Polygraph Test? |
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Booking a polygraph test is easy. After you have decided to proceed
with the polygraph test, contact us and arrange an appropriate time for the test which takes about
2 - 2.5 hours, either in the morning or afternoon. For non-regular clients, you will need to
come to our office to place a deposit. If you are in a foreign country, payment can be made via telegraphic transfer.
Before the test, we will require the full facts of your case
for preparation purposes. You can email or fax the facts to us or to present it in person. You can suggest the case related
test questions which are usually limited to 3 or 4. These questions must be short, direct, unambiguous requiring a 'yes'
or 'no' answer. On the day of the test, please bring along your cash payment in full. We only accept cheque payment from
corporate clients. If you are on medication, you should take your prescribled medicine before coming.
Please come on time. We give a maximun of half an hour grace period before awarding the time slot to another
client. Many of our foreign clients require polygraph tests to be conducted in their respective countries, especially
when there is a group to be tested. This can be easily arranged. We give special bulk discounts to offset the additional
cost incurred by airfare and accomodation. Simple as that!
Email Us With Your Queries or Booking
Call Us: (+65) 6737 9117
Location Map of Our Office
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