GOOGLE’s internet-enabled glasses may have bombed. But China’s police have turned the concept into a powerful law-enforcement tool.

Facial recognition software is being combined with advanced optics and networking to pinpoint potential suspects — even in crowded subways and shopping malls.

The glasses feed a constant stream of images back to a processor attached to the officer’s uniform webbing.

It captures faces as they turn towards the camera, applying a standardised set of measurements to each face before comparing it with a portable database in much the same way fingerprints are assessed.

According to the China News Service, the glasses have already been successfully trialled by four officers on Zhengzhou city’s East Railway during the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Authorities say the mobile facial recognition capacity led to the arrest of seven people and the questioning of 26 others believed to have been travelling under a false identity in just its first five days of operation.

The facial recognition glasses can process 10,000 faces within one-tenth of a second, its manufacturers claim. The speed of processing and the fact the glasses are being worn by officers gives makes facial recognition a major asset on the police beat, the news service reports.

It says officers are able to respond before suspects are able to blend back into a crowd, helping them to maintain contact in any pursuit.

Security-obsessed China has the largest network of surveillance cameras in the world. It also has assembled biometric data for most of its citizens.

The stated objective of this network is to identify and locate any of its citizens within three seconds.