Super Recogniser Makes 3000 Identifications!

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Excellent work by Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) Andy Pope of the West Midland Police in UK on making 3000 identifications from CCTV and other images. Andy was made an Honorary Fellow of the Association by the chairman, Lord Lingfield, in recognition of his work. BUT only 40% of his identifications result in suspects being charged, as the West Midlands Police, like many other law enforcement agencies, do not manage image identifications in the systematic manner that we see with other forensic disciplines.  Too many suspects are escaping justice because Andy’s top work is top being used effectively by senior police officers.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14816527/Super-recogniser-PCSO-Memory-Cop-breaks-record.html

Scottish Police Encouraged to Use Super Recognisers

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In the article below, Prof Josh Davis of Greenwich University, as honorary fellow of the Associate encourages Police Scotland to use their human Super Recognisers.

From the article: Professor Davis said: “When you want to try and identify the perpetrator and you have a database of potential mugshots, that face is fed into a system and it searches through, potentially, a very large database if you’re going to put it through the entire police record of everyone who’s been arrested.  It brings up a large array of face potential matches and against each one you’ll get some sort of percentage likelihood that it’s a match.  But if that person hasn’t been arrested for five to ten years their appearance will have changed. AI is not as good at that point at all.  It’s AI and super-recognisers that work the best together, rather than one or the other.”

Inside little-known super-spotters who help catch criminals - just 2% of UK have gift, find out if you're one of them | The Scottish Sun

New Fictional Novel Features Super Recogniser

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A new book “Her Last Move” by crime writer, John Marrs, features a Met Police Super Recogniser. From Amazon:

“Whatever you do, don’t read this in the dark…” —Cara Hunter, author of Close to Home

He hides in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment. Each kill is calculated, planned and executed like clockwork.

Struggling to balance her personal and professional life, young DS Becca Vincent has landed the biggest case of her career – and she knows that it will make or break her. But how can she identify one face in a sea of thousands? With the help of Police Super Recogniser Joe Russell, she strives to catch a glimpse of the elusive murderer, but he’s watching her every move.

Time is not on their side. The body count is rising, and the attacks are striking closer and closer to home. Can Becca and Joe uncover the connection between the murders before the killer strikes the last name from his list?

From the bestselling author of When You Disappeared and The Good Samaritan comes his most thrilling novel yet.

Her Last Move eBook : Marrs, John: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Ireland & Police Use of Facial Recognition

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The police in Ireland will be using live and retrospective computerised facial recognition, but who will verify these identifications? In the UK, this is covered by the Surveillance Camera Commissioner Code of Practice (Amended Nov 2021).

The key part is Para 2.4, which notes that, “Any use of facial recognition or other biometric characteristic recognition systems needs to be clearly justified and proportionate in meeting the stated purpose and be suitably validated. It should always involve human intervention before decisions are taken that affect an individual adversely.”    

The best people to verify computer identifications are human Super Recognisers. Combining the best humans with the computer provides excellent results.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/04/25/work-on-legislation-to-introduce-facial-recognition-technology-well-advanced-says-minister/

Awards Ceremony 2025

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On Thursday 1st May in London, Lord Lingfield was pleased to present certificates to Super Recognisers and Super Matchers who had completed their SRI courses in 2024 and 2025. Some of the highest scoring SRs were present. Prof Josh Davis also gave a talk on his latest SR research.

Additionally, Lord Lingfield conferred Honorary Fellowship on recently retired PC Jamie Smith. Jamie was the Met’s first Super Recogniser and used his skill to solve hundreds of crimes. Mike Neville gave a presentation on three of Jamie’s best cases - including a murder being sent to jail due to Jamie’s identification of a very poor quality CCTV image.

The previous evening, many of the attendees had enjoyed a Crime Tour of London delivered by Mike, followed by a few beers!

Super Recognisers & Hyper-Realistic Face Masks - New Research

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New research by Professor Josh Davis, an Honorary Fellow of the Association of Super Recognisers, and other identification experts has shown that human Super Recognisers can assist law enforcement agencies as criminals develop the use of hyper-realistic masks. The abstract:

Hyper-realistic silicone masks provide a viable route to identity fraud. Over the last decade, more than 40 known criminal acts have been committed by perpetrators using this type of disguise. With the increasing availability and bespoke sophistication of these masks, research must now focus on ways to enhance their detection. In this study, we investigate whether super-recognisers (SRs), people who excel at identity recognition, are more likely to detect this type of fraud, in comparison to typical-recogniser controls. Across three tasks, we examined mask detection rates in the absence of a pre-task prompt (covert task), and again after making participants aware of their use in criminal settings (explicit task). Finally, participants were asked to indicate which aspects of the masks could support their detection (regions of interest task). The findings show an SR advantage for the detection of hyper-realistic masks across the covert and explicit mask detection tasks. In addition, the eye, mouth, and nose regions appear to be particularly indicative of the presence of a mask. The lack of natural skin texture, proportional features, expressiveness, and asymmetry are also salient cues. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed.

The super-recogniser advantage extends to the detection of hyper-realistic face masks - LSE Research Online

Course Spans Three Continents

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Last week, the on-line Super Recogniser course had students from Asia, Europe and South America. Input was given by Prof Josh Davis, top performing Super Recogniser, Kelly Desborough and a counter terrorism expert. The students attained excellent “Z Scores” and qualifying as SRs. The next course is 17th-19th June. Why not join us!