In a bid to further expand its portfolio of surveillance tools, Singapore has begun with trials of robots patrolling public areas and deterring poor social behaviour. 

A joint project involving five public agencies is conducting the trials. The agencies include HTX (Home Team Science and Technology Agency), National Environment Agency, Land Transport Authority, Singapore Food Agency, and Housing & Development Board.

Two autonomous robots have been programmed to detect unacceptable behaviour such as dissing COVID-19 guidelines, parking of bicycles improperly and smoking in prohibited areas, according to a statement by Singapore’s Home Team Science and Technology Agency on Sunday. 

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It said, “The two patrol robots, named Xavier, are equipped with cameras that can detect bad social behaviour and trigger real-time alerts to the command and control centre.”

The trial is taking place in an area with high foot traffic in central Singapore.

The company said that the robots would do surveillance and display messages to spread awareness about proper behavior among people and educate them during the three-week trial. A spokesperson from the agency said that the robots would not be put to use for law enforcement during the trials.

“The deployment of Xavier will support the work of public officers as it will reduce the manpower required for foot patrols and improve operation efficiency,” the agency said. Singapore’s home affairs minister, K Shanmugam, in August, revealed the city’s plan to have more than 200,000 police cameras by 2030, which is more than twice the current number of cameras deployed across the island state in Southeast Asia.

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Singapore is one of the world’s most vaccinated countries. The island nation is putting in efforts to curb the spread of the virus. “We have to slow down the transmission rate,” Finance Minister and co-chair of the government’s virus taskforce Lawrence Wong said on Monday. “We will attempt to do so without going back to another heightened alert. These are last-resort measures and we will try our best to refrain from using them, but we should not rule them out entirely.”