← Back to context

Comment by furyg3

14 years ago

You might also go through a slightly different polygraph with highly personal questions about your sex habits.

Why do they do this? For blackmail purposes later?

I went through UK security clearance and can tell you that the process is to determine whether your personal/sexual habits are likely to make you vulnerable to blackmail. Not so that the government or agency can blackmail you.

That is: If you happen to be into BDSM and this is something you keep extremely private, then what would you rather give up? Your personal privacy or a piece of sensitive data?

So the interviews at different levels determine whether you can be trusted with the information based on the risk you pose to factors such as blackmail, or financial rewards, etc.

It is call a "Lifestyle" Polygraph and it is meant to weed out anything that can be used against you in exchange for divulging secrets. The major component to most of the clearance questions revolve around bribery. People don't divulge secrets typically because they hate the government or the country, but for much more simple reasons like they need to pay rent and they figure they can sell some secrets.