In Turkey when police stops you on a street they take photo of your ID card and then send those images through Whatsapp to a police station. And then you wait for an answer. Happens very often.
I am not aware of such thing. May be they didn't want every police to query the database.
But it appears that there is a face recognition app https://youtu.be/l8R6ZwSTLzU?t=105 the guy who is using the app in the video was the interior minister.
Why the extra steps?