To defend against terrorist attacks, the National Police Agency plans to have a system in place analyzing three-dimensional data of locations and routes to be used by leaders of the Group of Eight nations when they come to Japan for a summit in 2008, NPA officials said Sunday.
The system should enable security guard specialists to examine and analyze locations where terrorists would be most likely to carry out sniper attacks or other forms of assaults, they said.
The NPA has asked for about 200 million yen in the fiscal 2007 budget to build the system and cover related costs.
The U.S. Secret Service has used a similar system to guard the president.
Until now, the NPA has used a system that depends heavily on security specialists making prior checks of routes to be used by VIPs.
If they detect points that might be used by attackers, they have requested changes in the points or placed more police at such locations.
The envisioned system is designed to help police analysts examine such vulnerable locations beforehand by using the three-dimensional data gathered by special camera-equipped aircraft, the officials said.
The data will enable analysts to know the directions of blind spots where attackers might lurk by displaying 3-D images of such locations on computer screens, they said.