CIT Testing in Scotland
How the service runs locally.
We provide Concealed Information Tests in Scotland, centred on Glasgow, Edinburgh and the central belt between them. The examiner travels up from our base in Cheshire and works at a home address or in a private room arranged locally. Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness and other parts of the country are covered by arrangement.
The CIT measures whether a person's brain recognises one specific detail among several plausible alternatives, using an EEG cap and a simple on-screen task. It is not a polygraph. This page covers the service in Scotland, including a point about Scots law. The method is explained in the CIT testing guide.
Areas We Cover
Glasgow, Edinburgh and the central belt are covered routinely. Tayside, the north-east and the Highlands are covered by arrangement and need more notice.
- Glasgow West End
- Glasgow Southside
- Dennistoun
- Partick
- Paisley
- East Kilbride
- Hamilton
- Edinburgh city centre
- Leith
- Morningside
- Stockbridge
- Corstorphine
- Portobello
- Livingston
We also travel to Stirling, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Ayr. If your address is not listed, ask: the examiner comes to you, so the list is a guide and not a boundary.
Where the Test Takes Place
At home, or in a private room arranged near you.
Scottish appointments involve the longest journeys we make on the mainland, so they are planned ahead. The item lists are settled with you first, and a date is then agreed. If more than one person is to be tested on the same matter, we see them on the same visit.
The room requirements are the same as anywhere: quiet, with a table, a chair and a socket, for about ninety minutes. Tenement flats in Glasgow and Edinburgh are perfectly suitable. Where home is not private enough, we arrange a meeting room in the city.
What You Need Before Booking
The requirement is the same everywhere, and it is the one most cases fail.
A CIT needs at least one specific detail that the person would know only if they were involved, and that they have not been told, shown or asked about. A name, a place, an object or an amount can all work. A general suspicion cannot, because there is nothing in it to recognise. Two or three separate details make a stronger test than one.
The person to be tested must agree and gives written consent on the day. The full requirements, with a checklist, are on the who qualifies for a CIT test page. If no detail is known, read about the searching CIT and its limits before going further.
A Local Example of a Word List
Illustrative only. Real lists are written for each case.
Suppose the detail being tested is a town, and the true answer is Largs. The person would see that item mixed in with five alternatives, Crieff, Forfar, Lanark, Peebles and Dunbar, and would be asked to press a different key whenever Oban appeared. Each item is shown around thirty times in shuffled order.
These are Scottish towns of similar size that an uninvolved person would have no reason to tell apart. If the person had a caravan at Dunbar or family in Forfar, those names would be swapped out.
The step-by-step account of what happens next, from recording to result, is on the how CIT testing works page.
What the Test Can and Cannot Tell You
The same limits apply in Scotland as anywhere else.
A CIT can show that a detail is recognised, or that there is no sign of recognition in a recording that passed its quality check. It cannot test a bare accusation, it cannot tell innocent knowledge from guilty knowledge, and it does not prove what a person did. People can also be taught techniques that weaken the test; research published in 2004 showed this for the protocol we use.
Published laboratory studies of P300-based CITs commonly report detection of 80 to 95 per cent of people who hold the tested information. Those are laboratory figures and are not results from our own testing, and field validation is limited. If you are weighing this against a conventional lie detector, the CIT test vs polygraph comparison sets out the differences, and relationship cases are covered on the page about CIT testing for a suspected cheating partner.
The Legal Position in Scotland
What the law does and does not say.
Scotland has its own legal system, courts and legal profession, separate from England and Wales. That matters for one point made elsewhere on this site. The statutory polygraph scheme for offenders on licence comes from the Offender Management Act 2007, and section 40 of that Act limits the polygraph provisions to England and Wales. They do not extend to Scotland.
The CIT is not part of any statutory scheme in either jurisdiction. In Scotland, as elsewhere, it is a private and voluntary test. We make no claim that a result is admissible in the sheriff courts, the Court of Session or any tribunal. If there are or may be proceedings, take advice from a Scottish solicitor before arranging a test.
Booking a CIT Test in Scotland
What happens after you get in touch.
You can book online or ask a question first. We will ask what happened, what the person to be tested has and has not been told, and who else knows. If a sound test can be built, we draft the word lists with you and then agree a date and place in Scotland. If it cannot, we will say so before any appointment is made.