Commenting on the plan by HBOS, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, to introduce ‘lie detector tests’ to detect fraudulent claims, Mark Littlewood, Liberty’s campaign spokesman, said:

‘Lie detector tests do not detect lies. All they do is indicate that someone is nervous, hesitant or under stress. Filing an insurance claim would induce stress in most of us.

The company must give categorical assurances that it will destroy any data it collects and not pass it on to any third party. It must allow customers who have ‘failed’ the test to see their files and to allow them to insert any other information they think is valid. And customers must be made aware that they are being subjected to such tests.