Super-Recognisers in the Metropolitan Police

The August 2011 riots in many English cities cast a heavy pall across the country. It was extremely distressing for most members of the public who stayed in their homes to avoid nearly a week of crime-riddled evenings.

There was a strong sense of outrage and demand for retribution. However, unless a suspect was apprehended at the scene, for the police, the thousands of hours of CCTV footage was in many cases the only evidence linking offenders to their lawlessness.

In London, a substantial proportion of all suspect arrests were a direct consequence of identifications from CCTV made by a small group of front-line police officers — so-called super-recognisers. One identified 180 sometimes heavily disguised rioters. As the majority of suspects confess when confronted by such evidence, these officers were clearly somewhat special.
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Some super-recognisers had already come to the attention of the Metropolitan Police Service due to a steady stream of previous CCTV identification successes. As a consequence, psychologists led by a team from the University of Greenwich had tested the facial-recognition and other cognitive abilities of these officers to determine whether they possessed exceptional skills.

The super-recognisers’ scores on these tests were compared to a control group of over 100 members of the general population. This research revealed that some officers possessed extraordinary facial-recognition abilities shared by 1 to 2 per cent of the population. Their performances also met the scientific definition of super-recognisers established by researchers at Harvard University in the USA.

What makes a super-recogniser?

What makes super-recognisers so special? How can their abilities be best put to use? Science currently knows very little about super-recognition, although there is some evidence that it may have a genetic origin and is therefore innate. You cannot teach someone to become a super-recogniser. Those tested by the University of Greenwich were in particular superior at spontaneously recognising very poor-quality 12-year-old images of celebrities no longer in the public eye. This test has parallels to police officers identifying suspects from unclear CCTV footage, even if they had not seen those suspects for many years.

The super-recognisers were also superior at quickly learning the identity of previously unfamiliar faces, and subsequently recognising that face depicted in a different photograph within an array of highly similar faces. For most people, this task can be error prone.

Interestingly, the super-recognisers were most accurate at spotting that arrays did not contain target faces. This demonstrates that as well as being superior at recognising that they have seen a face before, super-recognisers are also excellent at recognising when they have not seen a face before. This is extremely useful to the police because it suggests these super-recognisers are far less likely to provide a false lead. Thereby they save vital time and resources.

As a consequence of their operational successes and the psychological tests, super-recognisers in the Metropolitan Police are now the first to receive images of the most serious crimes, as well as those matching their operational expertise. For instance, robbery squad super-recognisers view images of robbery offences. These changes to CCTV image distribution procedures have enhanced identification rates.

Other forces could probably utilise their own super-recognisers in a similar manner. Indeed, there may be 2,000 to 4,000 so far unidentified super-recogniser police officers across the UK. There may also be many super-recogniser CCTV operators or other security workers whose skills have so far not been fully utilised.

Of course, super-recognisers can only identify suspects they have previously encountered. Other officers or members of the public who possess average facial-recognition ability should always be encouraged to view CCTV images. Regardless of facial-recognition ability, most humans can reliably identify those familiar to us even in poor quality images — we may all be able to contribute to a police investigation.

Research at the University of Greenwich into super-recognisers from the police and other members of the public is ongoing