Privacy, Polygraphs and Work

Abstract

The of prospective employees have been the subject of considerable dispute, both past and present. In recent years, this dispute has focused on the use of polygraphs to verify the claims which prospective employees make on employment application forms. With employee theft supposedly amounting to approximately ten billion dollars year, with numerous businesses suffering sizeable losses and even being forced into bankruptcy by employee theft, significant and increasing numbers of employers have turned to the use of polygraphs.1 Their right to protect their is in danger, they insist, and the use of the polygraph to detect and weed out the untrustworthy prospective employee is painless, quick, economical, and legitimate way to defend this right. Critics, however, have questioned both the reliability and validity of polygraphs, as well as objected to the use of polygraphs as demeaning, affronts to human violations of selfincrimination prohibitions, expressions of employers' mistrust, and violations of privacy.2 Though there has been great deal of discussion of the reliability and validity of polygraphs, there has been precious little discussion of the central moral issues at stake. Usually terms such as dignity, privacy, and property rights are simply bandied about with the hope that some favorable response will be evoked. The present paper seeks to redress this situation by discussing one important aspect of the above dispute?the supposed violation of personal privacy. Indeed, the violation of a right to privacy often appears to be the central moral objection to the use of polygraphs. However, the nature and basis of this claim have not yet been clearly established.3 If they could be, there would be serious reason to oppose the use of polygraphs on prospective employees.