Russian ATMs Built To Detect Lies

New tech includes fingerprint, face and voice recognition.

By Christina Gossman | Posted Thursday, Jun. 9, 2011, at 11:58 AM EDT

They scan your passport, your fingerprints, your face and attempt to read your mind. Russian ATMs are taking banking security to another level—KGB-style, literally.

With questions such as “Are you employed?” and “At this moment, do you have any other outstanding loans?” the ATMs of Russia’s biggest retail bank, Sberbank, will detect nervousness or emotional distress to decide whether to give you money or not.

The voice analysis system used in the machines was developed by the Speech Technology Center, a company whose other big clients include the Federal Security Service, successor of the Soviet KGB, reports the New York Times. It should not come as a surprise then that law enforcement databases of recorded voices of people found to be lying during police interrogations were used to design the software.

And yes, the lie-detector ATMs adhere to Russian privacy laws, say Sberbank executives. Customers’ voice signatures will be stored as prints on their credit card chips and the bank will inform its customers about the new features.

The global financial crisis and too many outstanding loans led the Russian bank to consider automating most banking activities, according to a senior vice president for technology at the bank.

Deutsche Bank and Citigroup are among other banks now testing new technologies, though they are more interested in interactive displays and touch-screen terminals. Lie-detection technology might just be a notch too intrusive to them.

But Sberbank executive Victor Orlovsky insists: “We are not climbing into the client’s brain. … We are just trying to find out if they are telling the truth.”

Photo by Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images.