Police officers in Russia will have to start taking lie-detector tests from now on as part of a corruption-fighting drive initiated by the Interior Ministry, a news report said Thursday.
Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev has ordered that all police officers, drug police and employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service will now need to take polygraphs before getting hired or promoted, Izvestia reported.
Exams to test candidates' inclination toward drug use will also be introduced, the newspaper said.
The tests are aimed at evaluating aspiring policemen's personalities, improving staff quality and fighting corruption.
Polygraph tests are commonly used for screening government employees worldwide, but their reliability is widely disputed.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences published a report in 2003 that concluded that the majority of polygraph research was unscientific and biased.
