F O R U M
South African Journal of Labour Relations: Vol 32 No 2 2008
104
Employee polygraph testing in the
South African workplace
by Anne Scheithauer*and
Evance Kalula**
Abstract
Since the mid-1990s, South Africa’s industry has seen extensive use of polygraph
testing and the trend continues to grow, despite the ongoing debate surrounding
the polygraph’s accuracy. Its use in private employment is not regulated and
hence an employer can require its employees to undergo testing at any time for
any purpose. Employees are disciplined and/or dismissed because they fail an
examination or simply refuse to take one, while job applicants are not employed.
Many employers use employment contracts which contain a polygraph clause.
Test results are accepted as evidence in labour disputes. The law also permits
polygraph testing in some parts of the public sector.
Although polygraph examinations are extensively used in the private and public
sectors, the subject matter is not receiving sufficient attention. This paper briefly
looks at the theoretical foundation of polygraph testing and its empirical basis in
the employment context. We then examine the legitimacy of polygraph testing in
terms of international labour law. The ILO, for example, states explicitly that
polygraph testing should not be used under any circumstances. The paper also
considers the United States of America, which experienced a similar situation in
the 1980s, with about two million tests administered to employees every year.
Finally, Germany has always demonstrated a general rejection of polygraph
testing, and it has no known application in employment. The approaches of these
two countries could be instructive in finding solutions to South Africa’s problems.
1 Introduction
Polygraph testing in employment is administered to prevent and detect the occurrence
of crime in the workplace. Many South African companies experience economic crime,
in particular the theft of company assets by their employees, which causes them
significant financial losses. Certain types of business are particularly at risk, the prime
examples being banking, mining and courier services, as they require high levels of
trust and security. Employers usually only detect criminal acts in the workplace by
accident. In job interviews and on curricula vitae many prospective employees
fraudulently represent themselves in terms of their criminal records, qualifications, such
as matriculation or university degrees, or driver’s licences (see e.g. GriffithsReid at
www.griffithsonline.co.za/screening.php). This illustrates the importance of proper pre-
*Dr A Scheithauer was a PhD student at the University of Cape Town. This article is in part drawn
from the author’s PhD thesis, which was submitted to the Universityof Cape Town in 2007.
** Dr E Kalula is a Professor at the Institute of Development and Labour Law, University of Cape
Town.
