The section heading reads “POLYGRAPH TESTS OF EMPLOYEES OR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES PROHIBITED.” Almost everyone who has heard of Minn. Stat. § 181.75 stops there and files it away as the lie-detector statute — a rule about a machine that Minnesota employers stopped using decades ago.
The operative words are wider than the heading, and they are the reason the statute still has work to do. What subdivision 1 actually prohibits is soliciting or requiring “a polygraph, voice stress analysis, or any test purporting to test the honesty” of an employee or prospective employee. That last clause is not tied to a device, a sensor, or a needle. A written questionnaire that the vendor markets as measuring a candidate’s honesty is a test purporting to test honesty, and nothing in the sentence says otherwise.
That matters more now than it did in 1973, when the section was enacted. The polygraph has largely left the private hiring process. The written pre-employment “integrity” or “honesty” inventory — sold as a screening product, scored by the vendor, and delivered back to the employer as a risk rating — has not.
Does § 181.75 only prohibit polygraphs?
No. Read the first sentence of subdivision 1 as it is written:
No employer or agent thereof shall directly or indirectly solicit or require a polygraph, voice stress analysis, or any test purporting to test the honesty of any employee or prospective employee.
Three things in that sentence do real work beyond the word “polygraph.”
First, the prohibition runs to “any test purporting to test the honesty.” The statute does not define “test,” and it does not confine the term to instrumentation. The phrase names a purpose — testing honesty — not a technology.
Second, the prohibited conduct is to “solicit or require,” and it reaches conduct that is “directly or indirectly” done. An employer that never orders a test but arranges for one, or leans on an applicant to volunteer, is doing something the sentence describes.
Third, the sentence covers a “prospective employee.” This is a hiring statute as much as an employment statute, which means the person with the claim may be someone who never worked a day for the employer.
Does a written integrity questionnaire count?
On the text, a written instrument that purports to measure honesty is inside the statute. The statute contains no device requirement, no reference to physiological measurement, and no exclusion for paper-and-pencil or online instruments. The limiting word is “purporting” — what the test claims to do — and a vendor’s own marketing is ordinarily the best evidence of that claim.
The contrast with federal law is the sharpest way to see it. The federal Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 defines its subject in equipment terms. 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3):
The term “lie detector” includes a polygraph, deceptograph, voice stress analyzer, psychological stress evaluator, or any other similar device (whether mechanical or electrical) that is used, or the results of which are used, for the purpose of rendering a diagnostic opinion regarding the honesty or dishonesty of an individual.
“Any other similar device (whether mechanical or electrical)” is a closed category of machines. A written honesty inventory is not a device, mechanical or electrical, and so is not a “lie detector” for purposes of the federal prohibition in 29 U.S.C. § 2002. Minnesota’s phrase — “any test purporting to test the honesty” — has no such limit.
Federal law expressly leaves that gap for the states to fill. 29 U.S.C. § 2009:
Except as provided in subsections (a), (b), and (c) of section 2006 of this title, this chapter shall not preempt any provision of any State or local law or of any negotiated collective bargaining agreement that prohibits lie detector tests or is more restrictive with respect to lie detector tests than any provision of this chapter.
And the federal statute exempts an entire class of employers that Minnesota’s does not. 29 U.S.C. § 2006(a): “This chapter shall not apply with respect to the United States Government, any State or local government, or any political subdivision of a State or local government.” Section 181.75 says “No employer or agent thereof,” full stop. It states no commerce nexus, no employee-count threshold, and no government carve-out in its own text.
Minnesota got here first, by fifteen years. Section 181.75 was enacted in 1973; the federal act dates from 1988.
Who besides the employer can be liable?
The vendor. The second sentence of subdivision 1 is a separate prohibition aimed at the testing industry, and it is routinely overlooked:
No person shall sell to or interpret for an employer or the employer’s agent a test that the person knows has been solicited or required by an employer or agent to test the honesty of an employee or prospective employee.
Two elements distinguish this from the employer prohibition. It applies to “any person,” not just an employer or its agent — the screening company, the consultant, the scoring service. And it carries a knowledge element: the seller or interpreter must know the test “has been solicited or required by an employer or agent” for that purpose. A vendor that sells a general assessment into an unknown use is in a different position than one that builds the honesty screen into a client’s hiring workflow and scores the results.
What happens when the employee asks for the test?
This is the part of the statute that gets overstated in both directions, so state it exactly. The last sentence of subdivision 1 reads:
If an employee requests a polygraph test any employer or agent administering the test shall inform the employee that taking the test is voluntary.
Note precisely what that sentence is and is not.
It is not an exemption. It does not say an employee-requested test is lawful, and it does not authorize an employer to administer anything. The prohibition in the first sentence runs against employer solicitation and requirement; a test the employer neither solicited — directly or indirectly — nor required is simply not the conduct the first sentence describes, and the last sentence then adds an affirmative duty on top of that situation.
It is a notice duty, and the duty falls on the employer or agent administering the test, not on the employee.
It is narrower than the rest of the section. The first sentence covers a polygraph, voice stress analysis, and any honesty test. This sentence names only “a polygraph test.”
The practical consequence for an employer is that “the employee volunteered” is not a defense the statute hands out. It is a factual assertion about who initiated the test, and “directly or indirectly solicit” is a broad phrase. An employee who is told an investigation would go faster if he cleared himself has been solicited.
Who enforces § 181.75?
Three separate routes, and they do not depend on each other.
One: it is a crime. Subdivision 1: “An employer or agent or any person knowingly selling, administering, or interpreting tests in violation of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.” Under Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 3, a misdemeanor is “a crime for which a sentence of not more than 90 days or a fine of not more than $1,000, or both, may be imposed.” Note the knowledge element attaches to the selling, administering, and interpreting conduct.
Subdivision 2 supplies the machinery: “The Department of Labor and Industry shall investigate suspected violations of this section.” The department “may refer any evidence available concerning violations of this section to the county attorney of the appropriate county, who may with or without such reference, institute the appropriate criminal proceedings under this section.” The county attorney’s authority is not conditioned on a referral.
Two: the attorney general can enjoin it. Subdivision 3 is an independent grant, and it is drafted to survive any argument that equitable relief is unavailable: “In addition to the penalties provided by law for violation of this section, specifically and generally, whether or not injunctive relief is otherwise provided by law, the courts of this state are vested with jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations of this section and to require the payment of civil penalties.” It then provides that “[w]henever it shall appear to the satisfaction of the attorney general that this section has been or is being violated, the attorney general shall be entitled, on behalf of the state, to sue for and have injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction against any such violation or threatened violation without abridging other penalties provided by law.”
Two details are worth marking. The subdivision reaches a “threatened violation” — the state does not have to wait for the test to be given. And it authorizes “the payment of civil penalties” without capping them in the section.
Three: the injured person can sue. Subdivision 4 gives “any person injured by a violation of this section” a civil action for “any and all damages recoverable at law, together with costs and disbursements, including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney’s fees,” plus “other equitable relief as determined by the court.”
Read the remedy clause closely, because it is unusually generous in two places. “Costs of investigation” is an express addition to ordinary costs and disbursements — the cost of finding out what the vendor sold and what the employer asked for is recoverable, not absorbed. And the subdivision closes by providing that the court “may, as appropriate, enter a consent judgment or decree without a finding of illegality,” which gives a defendant a settlement path that does not require an admission.
What subdivision 4 does not do is set a statutory damages floor. “Any and all damages recoverable at law” means the plaintiff proves loss in the ordinary way. The federal act likewise fixes no statutory sum — 29 U.S.C. § 2005(c)(1) makes an offending employer liable for “such legal or equitable relief as may be appropriate” — but it makes fees discretionary, § 2005(c)(3): “The court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party (other than the United States) reasonable costs, including attorney’s fees.” Minnesota’s fee language is not phrased that way.
Can anyone be told the test happened?
Not without the tested person’s say-so, and this is a separate statute most people never reach. Minn. Stat. § 181.76, enacted in the same 1973 act:
No person shall disclose that another person has taken a polygraph or any test purporting to test honesty or the results of that test except to the individual tested. If such a test is given after August 1, 1973 and at the employee’s request, the results may be given only to persons authorized by the employee to receive the results. A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.
The first sentence bars disclosure of two distinct facts — that the person took the test at all, and the results — to anyone other than the individual tested. The second sentence is the release valve for the employee-requested test: the employee can authorize who receives the results. The third makes violation a misdemeanor.
Section 181.76 is the reason a reference check that mentions a failed honesty screen is its own problem, independent of whether the test should have been given in the first place. Where a former employee is compelled to repeat the employer’s stated reason to prospective employers, the disclosure question can collide with Minnesota’s self-publication doctrine — see our discussion in defamation by self-publication in Minnesota employment cases.
How does this fit with Minnesota’s other employee-testing statutes?
Section 181.75 sits alongside a much more elaborate testing regime and a much thinner one, and the drafting styles could not be more different.
Minnesota’s Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 181.950 to 181.957, does not prohibit testing at all — it conditions the right to ask on a compliant written policy and a qualifying laboratory. That structure is covered in Minnesota does not ban workplace drug testing. Section 181.75 has no policy exception, no safety-sensitive category, and no laboratory pathway. It is a flat prohibition with a notice duty attached to one narrow situation.
On the other side, § 181.75’s phrase “voice stress analysis” is the only place in Minnesota law that squarely reaches a voice-based measurement in the employment setting — a point developed in Minnesota has no biometric privacy act. Minnesota has no BIPA-style statute governing what an employer may capture from a body.
Two adjacent hiring statutes round out the picture: Minnesota’s criminal history hiring rules govern when an employer may inquire into a record, and Minn. Stat. § 181.64 governs what the employer may say to get someone in the door. Employers tend to audit those and never think about § 181.75 at all.
What to do with this
If you buy screening products: pull the vendor’s own description of what the assessment measures. If any part of it is sold as measuring honesty, integrity, or theft propensity, § 181.75 is in play whether or not a machine is involved, and the vendor’s exposure under the second sentence of subdivision 1 is separate from yours. A signed applicant consent does not solve it — the statute prohibits soliciting, not just requiring.
If you were tested or asked to be: the claim under subdivision 4 belongs to “any person injured by a violation,” which includes an applicant who was never hired. Keep the invitation, the vendor’s name, the instrument, and anything showing what the employer was told. Costs of investigation are expressly recoverable, which changes the economics of finding out.
If the result was passed on to anyone: § 181.76 is a distinct violation, and it does not require proving the underlying test was unlawful.
Madgett Law, LLC
We represent employees and applicants in Minnesota employment disputes, including claims arising from workplace testing, hiring practices, and the disclosure of employment information — and we advise Minnesota employers on whether a screening product they are about to buy is lawful here. If a test was proposed, given, or reported on you, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 181.75, subd. 1 (prohibition on soliciting or requiring “a polygraph, voice stress analysis, or any test purporting to test the honesty of any employee or prospective employee”; separate prohibition on selling to or interpreting for an employer a test the person knows was solicited or required for that purpose; misdemeanor for knowingly selling, administering, or interpreting tests in violation of the section; and the notice duty when an employee requests a polygraph test), subd. 2 (Department of Labor and Industry investigation and county attorney referral), subd. 3 (jurisdiction to prevent and restrain violations and to require payment of civil penalties; attorney general injunctive relief against a violation or threatened violation), and subd. 4 (civil action by any person injured; any and all damages recoverable at law, costs and disbursements including costs of investigation and reasonable attorney’s fees; other equitable relief; consent judgment or decree without a finding of illegality); Minn. Stat. § 181.76 (disclosure that a person has taken a polygraph or any test purporting to test honesty, or the results, prohibited except to the individual tested; employee-requested tests given after August 1, 1973; misdemeanor); Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 3 (definition of misdemeanor); Minn. Stat. §§ 181.950–181.957 (Drug and Alcohol Testing in the Workplace Act, referenced generally) — all from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988: 29 U.S.C. § 2001(3) (definition of “lie detector”), § 2002 (prohibitions on lie detector use by an employer engaged in or affecting commerce), § 2005(c)(1)–(3) (private civil action; liability for legal or equitable relief; discretionary costs including attorney’s fees; three-year limitation), § 2006(a) (no application to the United States Government or to any State or local government or political subdivision), and § 2009 (no preemption of more restrictive state or local law) — from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, United States Code, at uscode.house.gov.
This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Collective bargaining agreements, federal regulations, and the specific facts of a hiring or investigation can all change the analysis. No outcome is promised or implied.