EvoFIT composite face construction via practitioner interviewing and a witness-administered protocol

Abstract

Police require reliable facial-composite systems to help identify, arrest and convict criminals. Recent developments, however, have allowed newer versions of the EvoFIT composite system to be made available for policing. The outcome is an online (cloud-based) version and a new system called Witness At Home, both using a simpler interface. Here, we formally compare these two versions to establish potential benefits to policing. Two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, participants observed a target identity for 1 minute and returned 4 hours (Witness At Home) or 24 hours (EvoFIT Online) to construct a composite from memory. No significant difference in composite accuracy was found. In Experiment 2, participants constructed a composite, 24-hours after seeing a target identity, using either EvoFIT Online or Witness At Home. A significant increase in accurate identification was found for EvoFIT Online, with some utility for the self-administered procedure, together indicating benefit for these newer systems plus some areas for development.