Dawn Walton reports for the Globe and Mail. This short article is cited here in full:
CALGARY — Calgary firefighter recruits will be put through the paces their crime-fighting counterparts have been subjected to for years — polygraph tests.
Polygraph machines, popularly known as lie detectors, are used when recruits are being interviewed by fire departments in the United States, but it is believed this will be a first in Canada, Calgary Fire Department Captain John Conley said.
“What we’re trying to do here is just make sure that our background checks, our references and stuff like that are 100-per-cent accurate,” he said. “This is one way of assuring that.”
The machines, long used by governments and law-enforcement agencies around the world, measure breathing, perspiration rate and blood pressure to determine subjects’ truthfulness when answering questions.
Questions to be asked of would-be Calgary firefighters are not yet determined. The department plans to work with the polygraph unit at the Calgary Police Service to administer the tests, Capt. Conley said.
Some U.S. fire departments have embraced the machines to ward off lawsuits between employers when false resumé information is provided for background checks.
Calgary has considered using polygraph machines for about a year but not because it wants to avoid legal action, Capt. Conley said. Rather, the city wants to discover whether a recruit has a propensity to fib, he said.
However, Calgary has decided to use the polygraph as the technology is coming under fire. The American Academy of Sciences recently concluded that the tests are inaccurate, vague and flawed. Researchers attributed part of the blame for the faulty test results to too-high thresholds set by interrogators.
The U.S. government sponsored the study, and its authors are pushing politicians to phase out the machines’ use. But some police forces balk at that.
Calgary fire officials said that next year the polygraph tests would become part of its five-month application and testing procedure for recruits. Would-be firefighters will be told about the tests up front.