Human Super Recognizers: The Unsung Heroes Stopping Criminals

Kim Krushell

Co-Founder and EVP Information Securities

In the never-ending world of crime prevention, there are many unsung heroes who toil behind the scenes, leveraging their unique talents to bring criminals to justice. Among these heroes are people who possess a superpower, coined, “Super Recognizers”. These real life super power heroes are rare, representing 1-2 % of the global population but their superpower is the extraordinary capability to remember and identify faces. Since learning about “Super Recognizers”, I have been intrigued by the fact that these people really do exist, and their remarkable recognizing skills have become a sought-after talent to fight against crime, including cybercrime.

The super power these unique humans possess is not only the uncanny ability to recognize faces but they are also capable of identifying someone from a single encounter, even in situations where that person’s appearance has changed. Their memory for faces is also extraordinary making these rare individuals invaluable to crime fighting where traditional identification methods, need human validation.

When it comes to crime prevention super recognizers have been credited with identifying criminals in areas such as law enforcement, boarder security, and intelligence services. They also play a role in validating facial identification. Most identity verification technologies make use of AI, but they also involve human super recognizers as they have the ability to recognize subtle facial cues more effectively than AI technology.

If you think you are good at recognizing faces, you may be one of these rare super recognizers. To find out, there are online resources available where you can test your ability to recognize faces and see how you compare to others. One popular test is available on Greenwich University’s website, Face Recognition | Super Recognisers Greenwich | United Kingdom where they offer a test that is scientifically designed to determine if you may have this unique superpower.

I thought I was pretty good at recognizing faces but after taking more than one test, my dream of possessing a real-life superpower came to an end. That said, by writing this article I hope more people will learn about this superpower and perhaps discover that they have this amazing capability and can make a difference when it comes to combatting cybercrime!