A state-of-the-art video wall imported from Belgium has recently been installed inside the premises of Cyber Cell of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and offers an enhanced layer of security at Bengaluru’s Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna (KSR) railway station. This is the first such installation in the country.
A visit to the Cyber Cell, a highly restricted zone, reveals an imposing digital screen running to a length of 16 feet and a width of 10 feet. It has 16 windows that can simultaneously keep track of different locations across the station and is powered by Artificial Intelligence. The Command Control Centre run by the RPF monitors it.
A senior security official said that this forms part of the RPF ONE (Omnipresent Network Ensemble) being implemented at the station at a cost of Rs 2.2 crore. “The wall was installed in the first week of September. It integrates the CCTV cameras used in our Facial Recognition System (FRS), body cameras worn by cops, baggage scanners and vehicles under scanners at one place. It captures images 24×7 based on the algorithms fed into it.” It has been imported by a firm contracted with the project by the RPF, whose name has been withheld due to security reasons.
Inspector General and Principal Chief Security Commissioner, RPF, South Western Railway, Alok Kumar told The New Indian Express, “In this, we are leveraging technology to provide better security to passengers. The system will become fully operational soon. It is extremely useful in identification purposes, which is all the more useful in present times when faces are covered by masks for covid safety. If we just have a 25% to 30% image of anyone we want to track, this system helps us track them even if faces are concealed by mufflers or dupattas.”
The senior security official added that the system would also be able to control different systems from here. “For instance, if by mistake, a dangerous weapon has passed through the scanner and has escaped the eyes of the cop monitoring it, the system here prompts us. We can stop the baggage scanner from the Command Centre here,” she explained.
Elaborating on its potential in the future, the official said, “Once the RPF ONE system stabilises at KSR station and the FRS is launched at other stations, various stations in Bengaluru Division can be tracked from this room.”
