Cephos Corporation
Definition
A US company that offered commercial fMRI lie-detection services from approximately 2006. Its technique was excluded from evidence in US v. Semrau by the Sixth Circuit in 2012 under Daubert.
- Country
- United States
- Service offered
- Commercial fMRI lie-detection
- Operating since
- Approximately 2006
- Key case
- United States v. Semrau
- Outcome
- Excluded under Daubert by the Sixth Circuit, 2012
Common questions
Why did the Sixth Circuit exclude Cephos's fMRI technique in Semrau?+
The court found the technique had not moved from the laboratory to reliable real-world application, citing gaps such as the difference between controlled lab test conditions and real-world lying, and the absence of an accepted error rate for practical use.
Is Cephos the only company that has offered commercial fMRI lie detection?+
No, No Lie MRI is another well-known company that offered a similar commercial service around the same period, and both have faced comparable admissibility scrutiny in US courts.
Related terms
- AI Act Article 5(1)(F)
- The EU AI Act prohibition on AI systems that infer emotions, intentions, or characteristics from biometric data in law-enforcement and related contexts....
- BEOS / Brain Fingerprinting
- Lawrence Farwell's EEG-based method using the P300 event-related potential to detect concealed knowledge of crime-relevant items. Addressed by the Indian Supreme Court...
- BOLD Signal
- Blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal; the measure in fMRI that captures changes in the ratio of oxyhaemoglobin to deoxyhaemoglobin as a proxy for neural activity....
- Daubert Standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- Ecological Validity
- The degree to which a measurement or test procedure produces results that generalise from the controlled laboratory context to the real-world condition...
- Greely-Illes Critique (2007)
- Henry Greely and Judy Illes's 2007 analysis in the American Journal of Law and Medicine identifying five categories of problem with fMRI...
- No Lie MRI
- A San Diego-based company offering fMRI lie-detection services during the same period as Cephos. No court has admitted No Lie MRI evidence...
- P300 ERP
- A positive-going scalp electrical potential peaking approximately 300 ms after presentation of a significant, infrequent, or unexpected stimulus. Used in EEG-based concealed-information...
- US V. Semrau (2010/2012)
- The US district court Daubert hearing (2010) and Sixth Circuit affirmance (2012) excluding Cephos fMRI lie-detection evidence on grounds of insufficient testability,...