By Elinor Mills Abreu

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In Arizona and Los Angeles, police are replacing law enforcement mainstays such as mugshots and lineups of suspects with technology some call Mr. Potato Head.

The photographic database and facial recognition systems, called Crime Capture and CrimeWeb, allow investigators to pick different types of facial features to search databases for criminals. It's not unlike the toy famous for allowing kids to change body parts on a potato, police said.

"We've named it Mr. Potato Head in Arizona," said Cyndy Pellien, administrative services officer for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

"You can pick different types of eyes and hair," or even search for a specific tattoo, she said. "If there is a missing child, we have the ability to scan their school photo in the system and do flyers to notify people statewide immediately."

The software from ImageWare Systems Inc. IW.A replaces the paper records that can often take days or weeks to find or send to other agencies.

Officials around the United States are using the system to take digital photos of faces, tattoos, scars and other identifying features of people arrested.

The photos, combined with fingerprints, names and other personal information, are aggregated into a database that can be accessed by other law enforcers.

"Before, if you were booked, your picture was taken on real film. Then it was sent to a lab and developed," said Sgt. Larry Bryant of the L.A. County Sheriff Department's records and identification bureau, where officials arrest about 30,000 people a month.

"The police agency right next door never knew that a booking photo existed," he said. "They would have to send a letter to the crime lab requesting a copy, and that could take a week to two weeks to process."

The database is easily searchable, allowing officials to quickly find faces that are similar to a witness' description. For example, officials in Los Angeles county can use a composite sketch to search on its database of 1.5 million faces and get a list of faces that most closely match, Bryant said.

MR. POTATO CAR

The system also can help identify cars, allowing officials to search on different makes, models and types and even add dents and pin stripes, said Jim Miller, chief executive of ImageWare Systems, based in San Diego.

ImageWare's technology is also accessible by mobile devices. Los Angeles county is testing the system on iPac handheld computers, said Bryant.

Critics of facial recognition software, increasingly touted by law enforcers since the attacks of Sept. 11, say the technology is unreliable and violates individual privacy rights when used to grab images of unsuspecting people in crowds.

"People shouldn't be held as a suspect just because a technology holds them to be that way," said Mihir Kshirsagar, a policy fellow at the New York-based Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Miller said the technology is not relied on as the sole source of identification, and the central repository at ImageWare is not connected with any outside databases. "It's not a guilt or innocence tool," he said.

In the United States, about 900 police departments, including in New York and Los Angeles, and federal agencies such as the FBI use ImageWare technology, according to Miller.

In Las Vegas, officials use the system to automate background checks for 250,000 casino workers, while the state of New South Wales, Australia, including the state capital Sydney, and the country of Costa Rica are also deploying it, he said.