Demonstrating the Super-Recognizer advantage for law enforcement

So-called Super-Recognizers (SRs)-individuals with exceptional face recognition ability-are increasingly being deployed by international police agencies. Currently, however, empirical evidence supporting their utility for law enforcement stems from a single study based on a small forensic stimulus set and a predominantly civilian sample. Here, on the basis of data collected from within the entire cohort of ∼18,000 Berlin Police officers employed in 2021, we report the performance of officers identified as SRs, using previously published lab-based criteria under operationally relevant, highly challenging 1:n facial identity matching conditions via the Berlin Test for Super-Recognizer Identification (beSure®)-the only existing tool that uses authentic forensic material. As a group, lab-identified SRs exhibited increased proficiency across a range of forensically relevant tasks. However, lab-based SR selection methods showed limited sensitivity at the individual level. These findings support the utility of lab-based SR identification while emphasizing the value of bespoke, professionally relevant assessment for deployment within law enforcement.