3D Cameras Will Help Tokyo Cops Take Futuristic Mugshots In Scary Detail

3D Cameras Will Help Tokyo Cops Take Futuristic Mugshots In Scary Detail

Soon, police stations could have a lot more dirt on you than just your fingerprints. Cops could soon be taking 3D mugshots that will give them unprecedented details of your face, and they will store it in a creepy nanny state database to help nail crooks.

That’s what’s happening in Tokyo. Starting in April, all 102 of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Stations will have 3D cameras that will snap your face, morph it into a Tron-like 3D rendering, and store it to an identification station that will corral all those images in a database, Asahi Shimbun reports.

You can see how this is a step-up from traditional 2D mugshots. Security camera footage from the streets usually captures suspects’ faces at weird angles or in bad lighting. But authorities can use the 3D cameras at the station to basically create a topographical facial map of anyone in custody. They can even zoom in on the 3D rendering and look at it from a ton of different directions.

This seems like some dystopian solution for a lawless state, but Japan actually has some of the lowest crime rates in the world. With the rise of global terrorist groups and the upcoming Summer Olympics in Tokyo, however, Japan is on high alert. So we can probably expect to see more new cop tech aimed at keeping creeps off the streets.

[Asahi Shimbun via Engadget]

Image: Japan National Police Agency


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