Law-enforcement agencies across America are getting ready to embrace hand-held facial-recognition software that can grab a picture of a persons face from five feet away.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the device is attached to an iPhone that will search a database and can be held six inches from a subjects face to do a retinal scan. Topping off its thorough identification, the screen will also take fingerprints.

Manufacturer BI2 will deliver 1,000 of the devices to 40 law-enforcement agencies beginning in September.

Debate centers on whether use of the device constitutes an illegal search, but police are looking forward to the device regardless:

William Conlon, chief of police in Brockton, Mass., says he doesn't consider the mobile device to be an invasion of privacy. "It is just a picture. If you are out in public, I can take a picture of anybody," says Mr. Conlon, whose police department tested a prototype last summer and is planning to adopt the device. "Most people will say, 'I don't have anything to hide, go ahead.'"

More at the WSJ >