Privacy, the Prospective Employee, and Employment Testing: The Need to Restrict Polygraph and Personality Testing

Criticism of personality and polygraph testing has taken three forms: challenges to the reliability and validity of such testing; concern about the dissemination and availability of testing data; and fear of the loss of personal liberties through invasion of privacy, imposition of psychological inhibitions, and compulsion toward conformity. The question of dissemination of personnel data and the growth of personal dossiers has been dealt with extensively elsewhere, and is generally beyond the scope of this article. This article will consider legal challenges to the reliability and validity of such testing. The scientific criticism of polygraph and personality testing has been extensive, and citation will be made to appropriate reviews of this literature. A more extensive discussion will consider present restraints imposed by the courts and arbitrators of the use of testing in the employment context and will indicate likely further extensions of existin