Skype is the world’s main provider of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) telephone services. It provides free PC to PC phone calls. Its paid services offer PC-to-phone calls and supply additional software like KishKish

The KishKish add-on analyses audio streams for signs of stress that are supposed to identify lying.. See BBC report.

However, according to the Register, 25 January 2007, users could be breaking the law if they don’t let the person on the other end of the phone know that they are using it.

As well as contravening the Data Protection Act, use could contravene the Regulatory Powers Act, which carries the possibility of a prison sentence and up to £5,000 in fines

However, this seems debatable. If the law refers to interception of communications, it’s unclear whether analysing comms that are stored on your own PC is illegal. If this were the case, then network traffic analysers might already exist in a grey area. I think that the point that Out-Law are making in the Register article may apply if the software is used in such circumstances as they suggest, e.g. an employee phoning in sick and facing consequences on the basis of a detected “lie.” However, the source of such “evidence” would in itself be unlikely to be divulged in any dispute and a company would probably use other means to confirm the untruth.

In any case, the protection of the privacy of personal does not seem a major concern at present. Penalties under the Data Protection Act - which the software would seem to contravene quite clearly - are limited to civil claims. The Act has so many restrictions on its applicability that it does not seem that a challenge on the grounds of the DPA would be worth making for many people caught out by the process.

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