CCTV and the Super-Recognisers

In the past ten years, UK and international police, security and other businesses have increasingly drawn on the skills of super-recognisers, who possess exceptionally good face recognition ability. New jobs have been created and workplace practices changed. These innovations were initially driven by London’s Metropolitan Police Service, backed by the research evidence of Dr Josh P Davis at the University of Greenwich. This resulted in thousands of identifications of criminal suspects mainly from CCTV images. The establishment of the world’s first full-time Super-Recogniser Unit at New Scotland Yard led to international police, media, and museum interest, and has even inspired authors of fiction. More than 6,000,000 participants worldwide have since taken one of Davis’ face recognition tests, with a substantial proportion contributing to a growing body of research. This work will be assessed by the Research Excellence Framework (2021), which appraises the contributions of UK universities. Research impact is one of its key performance indicators, and the economic benefits from job creation and crime detection, as well as the public engagement, and cultural impact of this body of psychological research, enterprise and consultancy are likely to be recognised as having substantial international impact.