Passport officers are no better at photo identification than the average uni student

Even trained passport officers struggle to accurately identify someone from their photo ID, according to Australian research that indicates we need better border security methods.

Image: David White

To work out how effective photo identification security methods really are, researchers from the University of New South Wales’ School of Psychology recently tested a group of 49 Australian passport-issuing officers in a variety of face-matching tasks.

They also asked 38 untrained university students to try to match people’s faces to their photo ID, both current and two years old.

On average, both the students and the passport officers made an error about 20 percent of the time, showing that, worryingly, the average university student is just as good at matching your face to your photo ID as the trained professionals.

“We found the passport officers did not perform better, despite their experience and training. They made a large number of errors, just like the untrained university students we tested,” saidDavid White, lead author of the study and a psychologist at the University of New South Wales,in a press release.

Previous research has also shown that people find it challenging to match unfamiliar faces.

“Despite this, photo-ID is still widely used in security settings. Whenever we cross a border, apply for a passport or access secure premises, our appearance is checked against a photograph,” said White.

However, it wasn’t all bad news. The study discovered that some people naturally have an uncanny ability to accurately match people’s faces to their ID.

“We observed very large individual differences,” said White. “Some passport officers were 100 per cent accurate. This suggests security could be significantly improved by using aptitude tests to select staff for jobs involving photo-ID checks.”

The research, which has been published in PLOS ONE, has already impacted the way the Australian Passport Office works.

“Because of this study, the Australian Passport Office now sets face-matching tests when recruiting staff and when selecting facial comparison experts,” White explained.