The threats to disability benefits are getting more and more frightening as time goes by. People who rely on and need these benefits as they are truly unable to work are getting frightened by the increasingly real possibilities of having their money stopped, being just as unable to work, but unable to claim benefits either.
The
conference will hopefully be a force to reckon with, but the even more recent
comments from David Blunkett just add more worry to many people.
And if nothing else, this level of stress and concern and anxiety is almost guaranteed to increase people's own experiences of mental ill-health and make them less able to work!
But then today I was listening to
PM and heard that David 'Nightmare' Blunkett is considering introducing lie-detector technology onto the phone lines of Civil Servants who work with benefits, so that they can detect false or fraudulent claims from the public.
(I always think I can't be shocked any more, and I always, always am).
Now, this lie detector technology notes changes in the stress of the voice which is undetectable to the human ear. With these minute changes it can identify stress associated with telling a lie. But can it tell the difference between stress from telling a lie and stress from other causes?
There is
an insurance company who have apparently used this lie-detector technology on their telephone claim lines for 18 months, to detect and prevent fraudulent applications for insurance money.
They then interviewed a Psychologist who specialised in deception. He stated that yes, the voice does indeed react to stress in certain ways detected by this technology, but this is
not necessarily the stress or strain of lying. He pointed out that if someone is phoning esure after a burglary, their voice is likely to show these stress signs as a result of anger or distress or fear of having been robbed.
Similarly, if someone is phoning the Benefits Agency as a result of not having had their money on time, they might well be angry or annoyed or frightened or desperate. If the lie-detector software identifies the strain in their voice as them telling a lie - when in fact they are distressed in a totally different way - they could be labelled a fraud when they are really, truly not.
The psychologist stated that there is no machine that could detect the difference between stress in someone's voice from lying, and stress in someone's voice from being frightened, or angry, or many other emotions.
Putting lie-detector technology onto the phone lines of Benefits Agencies will make people even more concerned and scared to deal with these agencies than they already are. It will make people feel like criminals, and make them fear the repercussions if, for whatever reason, the technology brands them a liar. It will make people who already struggle with using a telephone even more wary. And it's just wrong!
As far as I know, lie-detector tests are not admissible in court because they are just not reliable. Should they then be used in these often life-and-death issues of giving people money to live on?
I think not.
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Technorati tags: disability benefits; david blunkett; incurable_hippie; lie detectors; rant.
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