The funding request, which has not yet been approved by Congress, would support a program run by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), the agency responsible for federal background checks. According to the budget document, the project will “modernize federal polygraph and credibility assessment technologies” to improve their accuracy and reliability, and the technology would be used for vetting prospective employees and for “insider threat detection.” The DCSA did not respond to a request for more information.
The proposal arrives as the Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has increasingly turned to polygraph tests in its hunt for press leaks. The New York Times reported that around 50 officers on the Joint Staff were given polygraph tests after news coverage disclosed depleted US weapons stockpiles in the war with Iran.
The effort builds on earlier Pentagon work. In 2023, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) ran an open submission process to find deception-detection products and selected two companies to build prototypes: Presage Technologies, which says it can measure heart rate and breathing using standard cameras, and Altec Research, a medical sensor company now pursuing non-contact sensing. A screenshot of Altec’s prototype shows it tracks head movement, facial skin temperature, and pore activity. Neither company responded to requests for comment, and the DIU declined to comment.
The Pentagon’s ambitions have drawn skepticism. “It’s a misguided effort to reduce the complex to something that is tangible,” said Kyri Kotsoglou, a professor at Northumbria Law School in the UK who studies the use of polygraphs in the justice system. The new program is just the latest in a long line of failed attempts to use technology to detect lies, the budget documents suggest.