Media Coverage

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Cybercrime

In May 2020, I gave an explanation in TV program Meldpunt (Omroep Max, NL) about a new type of Internet fraud, a combination of dating fraud and investment fraud.

In October 2019, I gave a radio interview at BNR news radio about fraudulent investment advertisements, encouraging people to invest in Bitcoin, gold, or stock.

In February 2019 I gave a radio interview at Radio 1, and a TV interview at EenVandaag about romance / dating scams.

In February 2019 I gave a talk and interview at a Security Awareness NL seminar about the importance of field experiment and objectively measuring the effectiveness of interventions to increase employees’ resilience against cyber attacks.

In 2015, I gave an interview to BBC Radio 4 Cambridgeshire about a report on identity theft.

 

Deception & Dishonesty

Lying about politics

In May 2020, I gave an interview at the Belgian Radio 1 about Stephane Bourgoin, a serial killer expert who extensively lied about his experience and career.

In February 2020, I gave an interview for Spraakmakers at NPO radio 1 (Dutch) about lying in politics and testing the factual correctness of President Trump’s tweets.

In January 2020, I served as ‘the inventor’ in the popular Dutch TV show “Is er een dokter in de zaal?”. Two teams of comedians had to answer a multiple choice question about my motion capture based lie detection research.

In November 2019, I gave a radio NPO 1 interview for Spraakmakers and to Algemeen Dagblad  (AD, Dutch) about Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s claims about not remembering previous mentions about civilian deaths in bombings.

Polygraph

In September 2019, I gave an interview for the Guardian about technology enabled lie detection and the role of AI in the future of lie detection.

January 21st 2019, proposals were released in the UK about reforming the way domestic abuse is handled (for example see this article by the Guardian on this topic). One of the recommendations is the use of the polygraph to examine the truthfulness of the statements of offenders. I contributed to a radio documentary on this topic for the BBC radio program World at One (UK; my contribution is from 36.40 onwards).

In October 2018, I gave an interview to the BBC to explain the benefits and disadvantages of lie detection using a polygraph. Other experts who contributed to the article are professor Aldert Vrij and Don Grubin.

BBC Horizon Documentary: A week without lying, the honesty experiment

In collaboration with production company Thoroughly Modern MediaRonald Poppe, Paul Taylor, Gordon Wright and I set up a real-world experiment testing real world lie detection and the challenges of living truthfully. The documentary was broadcast on BBC 2 on Wednesday the 29th of August 2018, as part of their Horizon Science series. Before broadcasting, the Sunday Times announced the documentary as their critics’ choice to watch. The documentary received international media coverage, including a TV item by the ONE show and several radio items including Met het oog op morgen (NL), de wereld van Sofie (Belgium,) and Rabbering Laat (NL). We also gave several interviews to newspapers, including Het Algemeen Dagblad (NL), RTL nieuws (NL), Humo (Belgian), and De Standaard (Belgian). Reviews of the documentary were written by The Guardian (UK), The Times (UK), and The Telegraph (UK).

Nomination Dutch Research Talent 2018

For my research on deception detection and dishonest behavior, I have been nominated for the New Scientist Research Talent of the year competition. First, each university and research institute in the Netherlands and Flanders were allowed to select 3 candidates who received their PhD after January first, 2012. These candidates were subsequently judged on their scientific impact, societal impact, the novelty of their research and ability to gain attention for his or her field of study. New scientist then selected 25 candidates, who competed against each other for votes in a public voting round. The final five candidates presented their research during the finals in front of a large crowd at Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht, on the 31st of May 2018. I was one of the final 25 candidates and several media covered my deception research during the period, including a TV interview by Open Rotterdam (Dutch), coverage by Erasmus University and Erasmus School of Economics, and an interview by Erasmus Magazine.

Motion-based lie detection

In the autumn of 2018, a BBC Horizon Science Documentary will be broadcast about our research on automatically detecting deception based on body movements (based on “To freeze or not to freeze” and “mining bodily cues to deception” papers). Together with Decepticon Conference, this research also formed the basis for a Curiosity Stream Documentary, and received a significant amount of international media attention, including TV interviews and shows such as NOS op 3, Klaas kan alles, BBC’s Crimewatch Roadshow, Fox News, Zoomin TV, WNL Vandaag TV, Dailymotion, and RTL Boulevard TV.

Our motion-based lie detection research also received radio coverage on BBC World Radio, BBC Radio 4, BBC The Naked Scientists, Radio538, BNR, and Radio 2, and was covered by several national and international newspapers, including The Guardian, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Cambridge News, King’s Parade, The Register Mail & Guardian, Trouw, NRC, Algemeen Dagblad, Volkskrant, KIJK, 7days, RTV Utrecht, De Morgen en Het Laatste Nieuws. In addition, our research was mentioned on websites such as Bruce Schneier’s Blog, International Business Times, Computer World UK, Engadget, Techie News, PC World, MyScience, Lancaster University, King’s College Cambridge, and as an Xsens Customer Case.

Concealed Information Test

My most recent study on identifying sensitive information using the Searching Concealed Information Test (sCIT) was covered in the magazine Human. In this study, participants had to plan and carry out a mock terrorist attack in groups of three participants. We investigated whether we could identify both which participant fulfilled which role (planner, accomplish, or perpetrator), and which attack decision they had made (which target, which bomb, which location).

Lie tendency

In September 2019, I gave an interview to Algemeen Dagblad (AD) about differences between men and women in their lying behavior. This was picked up by HLN and several Dutch magazines, including Flair, Magriet, and Libelle. Previously, on a related topic, I gave an interview about women lying about their age and an interview in May 2019 for HLN about the lying behavior of the Belgian mole in ‘Wie is de mol’.

In March 2019, I gave an interview to the Belgian newspaper ‘De Standaard’ about our lying behavior. This was also picked up by ‘Welingelichte kringen’.

Since the inauguration of President Trump in the US, I have given interviews to several magazines and news papers about Trump’s tendency to make incorrect claims, including an interview to the Algemeen Dagblad.

Our Frontiers in Psychology paper “When lying feels the right thing to do” received media attention on popular websites Psychology Today, Psych Central, Frontiers Blog and Science Daily. It was in the top 10 most read Psychology papers in June 2016.

Previously, I have also given an interview for BBC radio 4 about identity theft, featured in Stephen Fry’s radio documentary “Words fail me” about the emotional side of lying, and was interviewed for several TV programs on deception and truthfulness, including a TV special on the ideal liar by De Kennis Van Nu.