Socio-technical systems of anticipatory truth verification in the field of airport security

• Applicants: Dr. Bettina Paul; Professor Dr. Torsten Voigt
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442224904

In order to increase national security in Germany and internationally there is a focus on developing and testing new lie detection procedures, which can be used particularly in the context of border controls. These screening procedures, known as "truth verification", utilize semi-automated or fully automated systems that are designed to identify individuals with malicious intentions by measuring non-verbal psychophysiological parameters. As places with highly concentrated security requirements, airports serve as key sites for development and testing.The proposed project aims to investigate the development of these automated systems, which are meant to derive statements about "harmless vs. malicious intentions", from a science and technology perspective. The objective is to analyze what it means to automate truth verification procedures that were previously centrally based on psychological expertise and interpretation.The project therefore investigates how security demands and ideas of "truth" materialize in the development of new technical systems. In this context we focus on four key aspects: Firstly, the background against which new technical systems of anticipatory truth verification are developed and what their object of knowledge consists of from an epistemological point of view; secondly, what demands are made on the field of development; thirdly, how these demands amalgamate in the field with developers’ (or engineers) style of thinking and what negotiations this entails during development; and fourthly, how the systems are designed. The project will follow the development process of technology in the field of airport security. The focus is on the negotiation and design of the technical system, with the interest in finding out how truth and intention unfold, become operationalizable and finally materialize as phenomena to be detected in this socio-technical ensemble.With this focus, the project makes an important contribution to important sociological debates. In times in which concepts of truth, veracity and intention are called into question, the project investigates how these complex and multi-layered concepts are conceptualized in a specific setting and translated into applications, thus contributing to a sociology of truth. It also provides important impulses for the sociological analysis of visions in technology development. In addition, it offers insights that allow for the methodological advancement at the interface between computational ethnography and ethnography of technology by addressing the reciprocal influences of interaction, imagination, discursivity and materiality.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants