Sniffing Out the Truth?

Countless research has concluded that volatile organic compounds present in human sweat are altered by what’s happening inside that person’s head at any given moment. Both human subjects and such scientific techniques as gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry have proven capable of sniffing out the smell of fear as opposed to, say, the smell of sexual arousal. One study even concluded that body odor differs according to whether a person is feeling happy or sad. So, what about the smell of deception?

In a federal procurement document released last week by the Department of Homeland Security, its Science and Technology Directorate announced plans to conduct an “outsourced, proof-of-principle study to determine if human odor signatures can serve as an indicator of deception.” According to the notice, the department is already “conducting experiments in deceptive behavior and collecting human odor samples.” The research it now hopes to fund “will consist primarily of the analysis and study of the human odor samples collected to determine if a deception indicator can be found.”

This “proof of concept” research, which could potentially enhance the ability to detect an individual harboring harmful intent, is in its earliest stages of technological development, according to DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa. “A positive result from this proof-of-principle study would provide evidence that human odor is a useful indicator for certain human behaviors and, in addition, that it may be used as a biometric identifier.”

It’s a development which has already drawn sharp criticism from such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union. “The history of DHS´ deployment of these technologies has been one colossal failure after another,” says Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project, who believes that the plan shows evidence of misplaced priorities on the part of the DHS. “There is no lie detector. This research has been a long, meandering journey which has taken us down one blind alley after another.”

The proposed research would be conducted by the Federally Funded Research and Development Center run by the nonprofit Mitre Corporation, which conducts cutting-edge research for the U.S. military, Homeland Security and intelligence agencies.