There's an audio-analyser for telephone conversations, which is alleged to reveal when the speaker is lying. Duplicity, it seems, causes detectable changes in certain voice-frequencies. But in normal life, even verbal communication is largely visual. It is claimed that 55% of a speaker's impact derives from his appearance and body language, 38% from his tone of voice, and only 7% from what he actually says. So Daedalus is taking the obvious next step. He is devising an image-analyser to tell if a speaker on video is lying.

DREADCO technicians have set up a special studio for the purpose, using high-resolution cameras with an enhanced frame-rate. Volunteers, from clergymen through accountants to car salesmen and juvenile criminals, are being invited to converse on a wide range of topics, from philosophical speculation to embarrassing personal confessions, lying whenever they feel they can get away with it. A panel of detectives, psychiatrists and tax inspectors is studying the footage, and the DREADCO team are correlating their conclusions with details from the tape.

Each frame is analysed by modern pattern-recognition software, to identify the face and body of each speaker; these are then being searched for specific clues. Daedalus expects a liar to show subtle inconsistencies between face and body; blink-rate and gaze direction may conflict with hand-movements or shifting stance, and both may conflict with verbal stresses in the audio channel. A full spatial Fourier analysis of all movements should reveal the key stigmata of dishonesty, and with luck will be able to place it on a spectrum from trivial detail-bending to major fraud. The most reliable audiovisual indicators of dishonesty will then be simplified, enhanced, and adapted for normal TV and closed-circuit video signals.

DREADCO's ‘Lying Eye’ program will sell like hot cakes, starting in the rapidly growing video-conferencing market. Those base suspicions of tele-workers, long-distance contacts, and all the other evasive types who won't attend proper meetings, will be rapidly tested. The next obvious market will be the law — both for police interviews (now routinely videotaped to avoid claims of trickery) and in the courts themselves. Many doubtful cases will collapse spontaneously when it turns out that the plaintiff, the defendant, the witnesses on both sides, and the defending and prosecuting lawyers themselves, are all lying.