Converus

Converus, founded in 2009 and headquartered in Lehi, Utah, provides credibility assessment technologies as an alternative to traditional polygraph tests. The company was spun out of the University of Utah, building on decades of research by its founders. The scientific team includes Dr. John C. Kircher and Dr. David C. Raskin, who were instrumental in developing the first computerized polygraph system in 1991. Their extensive background in the psychophysiological detection of deception laid the groundwork for Converus's technologies. The company is venture capital-backed, having raised $16.2M, and operates on a business-to-business model, serving government agencies, law enforcement, and private corporations in over 40 countries.

The company's flagship product, EyeDetect, is a nonintrusive lie detection test that analyzes involuntary eye behavior to detect deception. The underlying principle is that lying increases cognitive load, causing subtle changes in the eyes, such as pupil dilation and blink rate. During a 30-minute test, a person answers true/false questions while a high-definition infrared camera tracks these ocular-motor responses. The collected data is encrypted, uploaded to a secure cloud server, and analyzed by proprietary algorithms to produce a credibility score with 86% accuracy. The results are available within five minutes. This technology is used for screening job candidates, testing current employees, and assessing visa applicants, parolees, and criminal suspects.

In addition to EyeDetect, Converus offers IdentityDetect and IntegrityDetect. IdentityDetect verifies a person's identity in under three minutes by analyzing variations in motor nervous system responses, achieving 91% accuracy. IntegrityDetect assesses an individual's trustworthiness in six minutes through implicit association analysis. The company's business model involves selling its testing stations, which include a computer, an infrared eye-tracker, and a chin rest, along with the associated software and data analysis services. The cost per test is significantly lower than a traditional polygraph, making it a more scalable solution for organizations aiming to maintain a culture of honesty and integrity.

Keywords: credibility assessment, lie detection technology, EyeDetect, ocular-motor deception test, identity verification, integrity testing, biometrics, cognitive load, deception detection, psychophysiology, employee screening, security screening, government technology, law enforcement tools, corporate security, pre-employment testing, University of Utah spin-out, John C. Kircher, David C. Raskin, forensic science, behavioral analytics, truth verification, risk management, automated screening