Bengaluru's KSR station gets facial recognition system

BENGALURU : A digital cordon envelops the Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (Bengaluru City) railway station as it has become the first railway station in the country to adopt the Facial Recognition System (FRS) technology. Within 90 days of the surveillance system going live, 47 history-sheeters have been identified within the station premises.

The South Western Railway (SWR) Zone is the first in Indian Railways to implement it. Similar IT-based projects are being attempted at all railway zones for improving security at stations, said Chief Public Relations Officer, SWR, E Vijaya. “This is an artificial intelligence-based application that can uniquely identify a person by analysing patterns based on the person’s facial textures and shape. The facial recognition system is widely adopted as it is a contactless and non-invasive process,” she added. 

On apprehensions that it could breach the privacy of individuals, she stressed, “We are only comparing the faces of criminals and missing persons and alerting if they match. No personal data is stored or used for anything else other than security purposes.” A total of 157 cameras, sourced from Belgium, have been installed across the station premises at Rs 2.4 crore, she said.

A railway security official said, “Apart from identifying history-sheeters, it also helped us reunite a senior citizen who was reported missing. We fed our database with her picture and it helped us track her.” The pilot project was launched in May 2019 at KSR and it went live a few months ago after satisfying all tests. The Railway Protection Force staff monitor the cameras 24x7. Sanjeev Kishore, General Manager, SWR, said, “The aim of facial recognition technology is to create a digital perimeter around the KSR railway station.”