Playa de Palma is Mallorca's chief tourism trouble spot, far more so than Cala Rajada and a sanitised Magaluf. A senior officer with the Palma Police force admits that addressing the situation is "a titanic task", but help is at hand. Security is to be reinforced with 15 state-of-the-art cameras equipped with artificial intelligence.
'Setur' is an unprecedented project that is being funded with six million euros of tourist tax revenue. As well as the cameras there will be four drones and eight vehicles.
The AI cameras will be capable of identifying situations. A town hall source explains: "If, for example, a person is walking down the street with a knife or a firearm, the camera can issue an immediate alert. Most importantly, it interprets situations."
The fifteen cameras are to be distributed along the six kilometres of Playa de Palma between Can Pastilla and Arenal. They will be placed in "high and strategic" locations so that they cannot be vandalised and will cover wide areas. They will also be a powerful tool for detecting pickpockets operating on the beach, especially at night.
"There are many thefts on the beach at night, and with these all-seeing digital 'eyes' we will have considerable help." The four drones will fly over the beach at night as well as during the day.
The cameras have "amazing" resolution and zoom, says the town hall. But the most important feature is not the recording system, but how the cameras can interpret different situations thanks to the AI. "These state-of-the-art devices analyse images and videos to detect suspicious patterns and behaviour."
They use computer vision and deep learning algorithms to identify specific objects, people and events, generating alerts and automated responses. The AI looks for predefined patterns, such as unusual movements, specific objects, or suspicious behaviour, such as someone loitering. And they are capable of, as it were, learning on the job - adapting to situations that hadn't previously been considered.