Eye in the sky: from cameras to Internet technology, Latin American ports go high-tech to tighten up security.

Taking a cue from retailers, Latin American ports and airports are setting up their own video monitoring systems to improve security at loading bays. Prior to 2004, Brazilian port Santos, the largest port complex in Latin America, didn't have any video monitoring systems. Today, there are 228 video cameras--199 of them fixed and 29 mobile--keeping a close watch on the port's 13 kilometers of wharfs and related properties.

Companhia Docas do Estado de Sao Paulo, which manages the port, has pumped US$15 million into security equipment such as cameras. Another $14 million will be invested in an additional 100 cameras through 2007, which will be capable of monitoring 53 ships in real time. That investment will also be used to build a 40-meter tower that will relay information to port authorities on shipping activities across 34 kilometers using buoys equipped with sensory devices. "The objective is to have total security when moving cargo, and the cameras will reveal everything," says Joao Fernando Cavalcanti Gomes da Silva, who is coordinating security upgrades at Santos. The port handles 72 million tons of cargo a year, a third of Brazil's exports.

Turnstiles and gates that require electronic cards to open are being deployed to track workers and visitors. Biometric devices--those which check identity based on personal characteristics, like fingerprints--will be used to identify people entering and leaving port facilities. All information runs through a communications control center, where 18 computer monitors display and store all the information for 30 days. Any suspicious activity, like theft or fraud, can be picked up on camera somewhere, 24 hours a day.

The cameras are the highlight of the port's new security measures, which have toughened in line with stiff global regulations that arose in wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. "Who wouldn't do this and run the risk of suffering trade barriers with the United States and the European Union?" says Gomes da Silva.

Security upgrades are fast becoming a trend across the region. The Port of Lazaro Cardenas in Mexico handles on average 50 ships a month. It is also the deepest port in the country, at 18 meters, and now it's also one of the best equipped. Since 2003, the port has installed 35 cameras and more than 80 other security devices and has room for another 2,000. The port is in full growth-mode after having built the largest container terminal in Mexico. Like Santos, Lazaro Cardenas installed an 8-kilometer line of fiber-optic cable to handle data. "The system monitors wharfs, ship channels, yards, bilges, loading and unloading platforms and access to perimeter roads," says Hector Carranza, the port's business manager, as real-time data streams by on his laptop.

It's happening, too, in Chile. "In a short time period, there was a strong tendency to incorporate cameras in the international maritime industry," says Bodrigo Montoya, head of preventative control systems at Chilean shipping company CSAV. "Different factors help explain this trend, among them, the need to defend against growing threats to security and the world economy, such as contraband, drug trafficking, theft, etc.," Montoya says. CSAV operates 128 ships--most of them container-carrying vessels, rather than ships that carry commodities, like grain--and moves goods to more than 270 places around the world. CSAV also runs operational centers in the United States, Brazil, Germany and Hong Kong.

"Take the Panama Canal. We are one of the canal's biggest users, and it serves as a perfect example," says Montoya. Both CSAV and the Panama Canal use cameras in the ships and installations, although Montoya, citing confidentiality, declined to say how much the canal monitors his company.

Security suppliers like Pelco, of the United States, and Canada's Verint are reaping the rewards of the drive for more security. Pelco makes cameras, and Verint is a video equipment provider. Even information technology companies are seeing a boom. One of them, Trielo Informatica, saw its market share in this business go from nothing to 20% in the last three years, to annual sales of $2.8 million. "The key here is integrating different technologies--access cards and video cameras, for example--all on the same [Internet protocol] platform, which makes all information available to everyone," says Reginaldo Cardoso, business director at Trielo, one of three companies working at the Port of Santos.

According to Trielo, which also does similar work at Argentine airports, demand has really taken off. "The United States sets the standards, but even they are still doing their homework," Cardoso says.

Oversight, Airports, which operate on standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a global body, have always had cameras filming passenger terminals. Airports began to install cameras in cargo zones after the Sept. 11 attacks. Guarulhos International Airport in Silo Paulo, has 71 cameras monitoring 100,000 square meters of the passenger terminal. Overall, the airport has 400 cameras filming all terminals, runways, parking lots and points of access. "We have never had a serious incident, but in 2001 we had to redouble our efforts," says Joao Marcio Jordao, superintendent for the airport, which will invest $5.6 million this year on equipment, including more cameras and X-ray machines, now required in the cargo terminals.

"The cargo sector has had to invest more and exert greater oversight during the last few years," says Wagner Borelli, operations coordinators for the cargo division at American Airlines, one of the 40 airlines at Guarulhos. "Before there were fewer rules." The company runs daily flights from Brazil to the United States, moving 100 tons of cargo each day. "We are monitoring 24 hours a day and if we have a special load, cell phones for example, a camera will specifically follow that shipment until it embarks on the aircraft."

MARGARIDA O. PFEIFER * SAO PAULO