Information Sheet

Version 2023

0MB Control No. 0693-0043

Expiration Date 6/30/2025

Information Sheet for Research Study

Principal Investigator: P. Jonathon Phillips, Ph.D.

Study Title: Measuring the difference in accuracy of forensic facial comparisons of different races

Study Site(s): Laboratory or office location of the participants

You are invited to participate in a research study. Your participation is voluntary. This document explains information about this study. You should read the information below and ask questions about anything that you do not understand. A researcher will be able and available to answer your questions.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study is to understand the facial recognition process of forensic facial examiners and people with superior face recognition ability when comparing faces of Black and White individuals. Forensic facial examiners will use their laboratory tools and methods to determine how likely the two faces are of the same person.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT

If you take part in this study, you will be asked to:

• Schedule an interview with a NIST researcher.

• If applicable, confirm you have your employer’s permission to use your employer’s computers, email, laboratory tools, methods, or procedures to perform facial comparisons.

• Review this information sheet, prior to the interview.

• Participate in a phone interview in which we will:

  • Review the goals of the project.

  • Explain the information sheet.

  • Answer any questions you may have.

  • Ask you a series of screening questions to determine if you are eligible to participate in this study. If you are not eligible, your participation in the study will end at this step and your data will be destroyed.

• Download 15-35 pairs of face images that you are to compare. You will be emailed instructions for downloading the face image pairs from NIST’s secure fileserver. You may only use the images for the purposes of this study.

• Compare the pairs of face images. Please do not consult or discuss this study friends, family, or colleagues from your institution or other institutions.

• Rate the similarity between each pair on the following scale:

o +3: The observations strongly support that it is the same person.

o +2: The observations support that it is the same person.

o +1: The observations support to some extent that it is the same person.

• 0: The observations support neither that it is the same person nor that it is different persons.

• –1: The observations support to some extent that is not the same person.

• –2: The observations support that is not the same person.

• –3: The observations strongly support that it is not the same person.

• After each face comparison, you will have opportunity to rate the difficulty of the comparison. Rating the difficulty of the comparison is optional.

• Submit your ratings online via a secure online survey service, Survey Monkey.

• After ratings for all image-pairs are entered, you will be asked if your entries are final. If yes, you will be asked to click the submit button. Prior to clicking the submit button, you can change your answers. The survey can be accessed in multiple sessions during the course of the experiment. You may withdraw from this study until you click the final submit button.

• You will have three months to complete all comparisons and finalize your submissions. If you do not finalize your submissions within three months, we will withdraw you from the study.

• You will receive an email from the PI once a month reminding you about the study. In the third month, you will receive a reminder once a week. Once you have completed the study, you will not receive any reminder emails. Once you have completed the experiment, you will receive an email reminding you can request your test score if you wish to do so.

We will record the results of your ratings of similarity between faces, the difficulty ratings (if any), and the answers to the screening questionnaire. If you agree to participate, your answers to the screening questionnaire will be included as part of the research data. We will keep this data and your ratings data to perform detailed analysis and for re-analysis and meta-analysis at a later date.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION/OTHER BENEFITS

You will not be compensated for your participation.

The potential benefits of participating in this research study include receiving your score. You can request your own score after you complete the study. You have to request your score before the first major publication of results. If requested, we will provide your score on the comparison portion of the study only after the distribution of accuracies is known and the study has been published as a report or paper. The score will be provided to only you via the postal address you may provide for this purpose. We will not give your score or contact information to anyone else.

Participants electing to request their test score are advised to consider first consulting with their agency’s counsel or counsel of their choice. In some legal systems, knowledge of your test score may create an obligation for the participant or the participant’s employer to disclose the test score in a criminal, civil or regulatory proceeding for which they are called to testify or provide evidence. All requests for a participant’s test score must be made in writing by email or postal mail. When the results for the experiment are published, the key linking participant’s name with their test results will be destroyed. This will make it impossible to recover a participant’s test score after the results are published.

CONFIDENTIALITY

The members of the research team, NIST Research Protections Office (RPO) to include the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) may access the data. The IRB reviews and monitors research studies to protect the rights and welfare of you, the research subject.

It may be possible to identify the participants from the responses to the eligibility and demographic questionnaire. However, your identity will be protected to the extent permitted by law, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)*.

* Federal agencies are required to disclose records upon receipt of a written request, with some exceptions. This right of access is enforceable in court. The FOIA provides public access to all federal agency records except for those records (or portions of those records) that are protected from disclosure by any of nine exemptions or three exclusions (reasons for which an agency may withhold records from a requester).

If you consent to participate in research and a FOIA request is made, NIST will make every effort to apply the appropriate FOIA exemptions to protect your identity.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable information will be used. Data will be de-identified. Concurrent with the first publication, the link between names and subject code will be completely destroyed (papers shredded, disks wiped clean).

The de-identified data set of ratings of similarity between faces will be made available to other researchers including Prof. Alice J. O’Toole of the University of Texas at Dallas.

POSSIBLE RISKS

This research is considered to be minimal risk. That means that the risks associated with this study are the same as what you face every day.

As is stated in a previous section of this information sheet, participants may request their own test scores. In some legal systems, knowledge of your test score may create an obligation for the participant or the participant’s employer to disclose the test score in a criminal, civil or regulatory proceeding for which they are called to testify or provide evidence. Therefore, you should consider consulting with your agency’s legal counsel or counsel of your choice before deciding to make a written request for your test score.

There is also a very small risk that someone who is not authorized could get access to the data we have stored about you. However, we describe how we will protect your privacy and confidentiality in a previous section of this information sheet.

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have any questions about this study, please contact P. Jonathon Phillips, Ph.D., at jonathon.phillips@nist.gov.

RPO/ IRB CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have any questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the NIST Research Protections Office and/or Institutional Review Board at 301-975-5445 or email rpoffice@nist.gov.

You should only decide to participate if the following is true for you:

I understand the above description of the research and the risks and benefits associated with my participation as a research subject. I understand that by proceeding, I am choosing to take part in this research voluntarily.

DO NOT SIGN THIS INFORMATION SHEET. PLEASE KEEP IT FOR YOUR RECORDS.

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