compl3x Posted August 19, 2014 Share Posted August 19, 2014 Passport officers are no better at identifying a fake passport photo than the average person, a new study reveals. But hiring staff based on their ability to identify faces would significantly improve passport security, say Australian and UK researchers. The study, published in the journal PLOS One, reveals passport officers had a 14 per cent error rate in matching faces to photos, despite years of experience and training. Face recognition is a notoriously difficult skill. Previous research has shown that untrained people find matching unfamiliar faces with photos extremely challenging -- even when photos are shown side by side, or the person is standing in front of them. The new study, led by Dr David White from the University of New South Wales, tested the ability of group of 49 passport officers from the Australian Passport Office to perform a range of tasks. On average, the passport officers had been on the job for more than eight years and all but three had received face recognition training as part of their employment. "We had expected that due to their current training methods [and] the experience of doing a task daily they may perform slightly better [than the average person]," says White. Continue reading Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnelsoninjax Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Kind of scary! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
compl3x Posted August 21, 2014 Author Share Posted August 21, 2014 In my experience most people who have to check IDs are pretty hopeless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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