As of next year, everyone crossing Greek, Hungarian and Latvian borders will face avatars

Questioning through robots, lie detecting tests. Experts are against. Repercussions on travellers

As of next year, the European Union will introduce a new and more rigid process of checking citizens on the borders, starting with Greek, Hungarian and Latvian borders.

This will be done by introducing a questionnaire through artificial intelligence and a lie detection test. The EU says that this new process will make border checks on the border easier and that it will fight criminality, but critics are sceptic and they don’t consider the test results as being serious.

What will happen as of next year?

The first contact that people who enter the EU will have when crossing the border will not be a human being, but a police officer created by a computer. On one hand, the avatar will check travel documents, passport, the visa and other relevant documents.

On the other hand, it will also ask the same questions that a customs officer asks, such as the content of the suitcases and the motive of the visit. The answers will be registered by a camera and will be analyzed. New computer software will be able to discern the facial expression of the interviewees to check if they tell the truth or not.

If the program believes that the traveller is telling the truth, the following checks made by the human officer will be a brief one. Otherwise, the following checks will be longer.

Next year, the computer program will be tested in entry points in Greece, but also in Hungary and Latvia.

Experts have their doubts

The EU incentive has a cost of 4,5 million euros, but independent experts have doubts about their success. Bennet Kleinberg, professor of the Institute of Forensic Science at London’s University College says that there are scientific data proving that facial expressions and mimics cannot discern lies. “With the technique being used, we can only discern if a person is in stress or not”, he adds.

What’s more, there’s the danger that people may be unjustly penalized. The emotions created during the questioning could be prejudiced by the extra checks, thus causing the interviewee to be unjustly penalized.

Based on the criticism being made, the European Union has agreed to analyze the results of the tests that travellers are subjected to when they cross borders and will then decide if the detector will be part of the entry procedure in the EU.

EU Decision: Avatar to check Albanians who lie in the borders with Greece

As of next year, the European Union will introduce new measures to stop migration. Detectors will question travellers to find out whether they lie or not when they cross the borders.  The incentive starts in Greek, Hungarian and Latvian border crossing points. There, we will be asked why we’re visiting the country, how much money and what luggage we are carrying with us.