BENGALURU: A digital cordon now envelops the Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (Bengaluru City) railway station, thanks to it becoming the first railway station in the country to adopt the Facial Recognition System (FRS) technology.
Within 90 days of the state-of-the-art surveillance system going live, a total of 47 history sheeters have been identified within the station’s premises.
South Western Railway (SWR) Zone has become the first zone in Indian Railways to implement it. Similar IT-based projects are being attempted t all zonal Railways for improving security at stations Chief Public Relations Officer, SWR, E Vijaya told TNIE, “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.
Facial recognition system as technology is widely adopted as it is a contactless and non-invasive process.
Ruling out a commonly spelt out apprehension that it could breach the privacy of individuals, she stressed. “We are only comparing faces of criminals and missing persons and alerting if they match. Moreover, no personal data is stored or used for anything else other than security purposes,” Vijaya said.
A total of 157 cameras, sourced from Belgium, have been installed across the station premises at a cost of Rs 2.4 crore, she said.
According to a railway security official, "FRS helped us detect 47 history sheeters within just three months of launching it. It also helped us reunite a senior citizen who was reported missing by her family members recently. We fed our database with her picture and it helped us track where exactly she was present,” the CPRO added.
The pilot project in this connection was launched in May 2019 at KSR and it has gone live a few months ago after it satisfied all tests. The Railway Protection Force staff would be monitoring the cameras mounted on a video wall, 24x7.
Sanjeev Kishore, General Manager, SWR, said, “The aim of installation of facial recognition technology backed by artificial intelligence is to create a digital perimeter or boundary around the KSR railway station. Apart from taking our security apparatus to the next level, it also helps in tracing missing children and cracking down on touts at Passenger Reservation Centres.”
KSR, being the station with the highest footfalls in SWR, has been selected in SWR for the project, he added.