Interrogation using polygraph (often incorrectly called «lie detection») are gradually introduced into activities of a number of government bodies as a method of screening and

check-up of personnel when granting access to law-enforcement practice and classified information constituting State secret. This method is similarly introduced in the Russian private enterprise...

After decades of negative attitude to using the polygraph as a preventive measure in disclosing and investigation of crime, the psycho-physiological method of lie detection with the help of this device was authorized in Russia in 1993. A year later interrogation using polygraph (further — IUP) were officially included in the entire system of methods and facilities of the Russian criminal science.
Within the last decade this method has seen fast adoption by the Russian

law-enforcement practice. The specific methodological assessment of interrogation using polygraph from the standpoint of criminalistics proved IUP a particular method of criminal detection. The adoption of IUP by modern criminal science actually entailed the birth of «criminalistic polygraphology», a new trend in criminal science...

2003 is a jubilee year for polygraph specialists and those whose life is in some extent connected with polygraph. 1993 became the end of decades of incogitant denial of possible use of the «lie detection» psychophysiological technique for the

law-enforcement purposes. 10 years ago, Ministry of Justice enacted the first legal instrument in the country, which instrument regulated polygraph use by the Federal Security Service (FSS) thereby legalising applied use of the technique in Russia. What are the achievements of national science and practice in this field for the last 10 years?

Today, Russia demonstrates impressive rates of economic growth, and, quite naturally,

high-skilled specialists are in demand. In addition to professional competence and successful performance experience, they must meet the high standards in terms of loyalty to the employer. Hence the growing number in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large Russian cities of private businesses, trading companies, security and other firms that use a  special-purpose device, often commonly called the «lie detector», to ensure commercial security.

In February this year Dan Sosnowski (one of the American polygraph association /АРА/ Directors) visited Moscow. We spent several hours discussing different items and D.Sosonowski told me why he came to Russia. Here is the story.
Two citizens of Kazakhstan made a request to American embassy in Alma-Ata for residential permits. For some reason embassy officials made a decision that documents of two Kazakh citizens were invalid and the embassy refused to issue the residential permit.
Kazakh citizens insisted that their documents were in a perfect order and made a request to American law firm «W & A», located in Moscow, to help them. A lawyer proposed both of them to pass the polygraph examination to confirm the validity of the documents. Both men have agreed and «W & A» invited to fulfill this exams D.Sosnowski. So he arrived in Moscow...

2003 is a jubilee year for polygraph specialists and those whose life is in some extent connected with polygraph. 1993 became the end of decades of incogitant denial of possible use of the "lie detection" psychophysiological technique for the law-enforcement purposes. 10 years ago, Ministry of Justice enacted the first legal instrument in the country, which instrument regulated polygraph use by the Federal Security Service (FSS) thereby le-galising applied use of the technique in Russia.
What are the achievements of national science and practice in this field for the last 10 years?

For decades the legal science in Russia used to treat the polygraph techniques of obtaining information from man as a pseudo-scientific method and the very application of the polygraph in the law-enforcement practice was inadmissible on principle. Such attitude resulted in the emergence some 25 or more years ago of the so-called «polygraph problem», the one hiding an amorphous body of methodological, technological, legal and other issues. Actually, the problem was a two-fold one: a) may the use of the polygraph be permitted for law-enforcement purposes, and b) if yes, may the results obtained by means of the polygraph be used for purposes of the procedural law.