Implementation of modern security system technologies have been installed in a segment of outer border of the European Union, supervised by Lithuania. At the border with Belarus and Kaliningrad Area of Russia – in Pagegiai and Varena frontier zones – the electronic engineering solutions company Fima has installed these. The project is valued at 12 million Litai.
In the mentioned frontier zones, Fima erected towers, on which they mounted image surveillance cameras and thermal visors – devices that identify human heat. Moreover, infrared ray barriers and warning zones with motion detectors were installed, along with other complex solutions.
Individuals, who try to cross the border illegally, will not always be able to know whether they are under surveillance, seeing as in the mentioned intervals, the territory will be observed by patrol officers as well as by hidden or visible to the naked eye technologies.
“Technologies adapted in modernized frontier zones “overlap” the territory several times, therefore it is practically impossible to carry out an offence without being noticed. Moreover, the new equipment enables the possibility of viewing such incidences and acts of violation, which was previously hardly imaginable” – told the Director General of Fima, Gintaras Juknevicius.
At the frontier, Fima installed the most advanced hardware and software, which was adapted to the specific Lithuanian frontier conditions. Night vision devices will enable officers to register offenders under any weather conditions at a distance of 2-5 km from the site of surveillance, whilst vehicles will be detected within a 10 km radius. Until now, this night vision technology was used only in military weaponry, and its application for frontier protection only became possible upon Lithuania’s becoming a member of the EU and NATO.
Financed from PHARE funds, this project is an initial stage in reorganizing the state border protection in accordance with the standards, provided for by Schengen Agreement. The second stage for the call for tenders has already been announced and Fima, the company that implemented the first stage, is contending to install analogical technologies in the entire remaining part of Lithuania’s border with Belarus and Kaliningrad area. Regardless of the delayed expansion of Schengen, the second stage implementation activities should not be postponed so that to enable making use of the funds assigned by the EU. It is estimated that technological solutions in the entire frontier will be implemented by the end of November 2007.
