Ian Cameron was asked on to BBC Radio Scotland to discuss Police Scotland’s decision to reverse its ban on recruiting officers with colour deficiency. The change in policy was a result of a legal bid by one potential recruit. You can listen to the piece here.
Ian discussed the eye examination that anyone entering the police force can expect to go through, including a test of visual acuity: how far you can read down standard chart, a visual field: testing peripheral vision, as well as a colour vision test. Ian highlighted that colour deficiency was a very hard condition to quantify as the test is not very accurate and there are such varying degrees of the condition.
Putting it in the context of the police force, Ian discussed how officers with colour deficiency, may find it harder to pick out an individual in a crowd based on the colour of clothes he was wearing. Their judgment may also be put under more scrutiny, say under cross-examination.
It is certainly an area that would benefit from more research that could result in better testing to identify a scale for the condition rather than relying on a degree of subjectivity.
