What are the implications of individual differences in face identification ability for occupations involving face recognition?

The human face provides the primary visual means for identifying other people and important occupations depend on this task, such as passport control at borders and person identifications in police investigations. These tasks are performed by different types of professionals. There are facial reviewers, who receive limited training and perform a high volume of person identifications on a daily basis, whereas facial examiners receive extensive training and mentoring to perform a limited number of identifications following strict protocols. A third group of professionals also exists, reflecting so-called super-recognisers, who appear to have a naturally high aptitude for face perception. In this chapter, the identification accuracy of these three professions is reviewed at a group level, to demonstrate general performance, and at the level of the individual, to show the range of ability that exists between different personnel. The implications of these general and individual performance profiles are discussed.