SINGAPORE — More security officers will be deployed and crash barriers set up for the first time at this year’s Siloso Beach countdown party, in light of the heightened security situation worldwide.

Over 120 security personnel and 50 police officers — 5 per cent and 20 per cent higher, respectively — will be on the ground at the 11th edition of the annual extravaganza, which will go on from 6pm on Sunday (Dec 31) to 6am the following morning.

Officers from the Special Operations Command have also been roped in for this year’s edition, while officers from the Police Coast Guard have been instructed to keep a close eye during the event for “possible security threats on the sea front”.

“Given the increased number of security incidents both regionally and internationally, there is a need for us to step up our security measures for major events. For this upcoming Sentosa beach party, we have been working closely with Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) ... You will expect more security presence on the ground as well as enhanced measures to keep the environment safe for party-goers,” said Superintendent Daniel Hui, who oversees operations at the Clementi Police Division, which covers the south-west of Singapore, including Sentosa and Jurong Island.

The growing trend of terrorists using vehicles as lethal weapons — such as when a car plowed into Christmas shoppers in downtown Melbourne over a week ago — have spurred the authorities to mount concrete blocks and mobile crash barriers in the vicinity of the party venue. Unauthorised vehicles are not allowed on the party premises, which covers about 25,000 sq m of the beach.

More than 10,000 participants are expected.

SDC has been beefing up the number of auxiliary security officers — who are in charge of conducting bag checks and random vehicle screenings — by about 5 per cent annually at the beach countdown party over the past few years.

Technology will also be used to augment the efforts of the boots on the ground, said Mr Lee Cheow Hiang, SDC’s security director.

For instance, this year, the Joint Command Centre on Sentosa — which acts as a surveillance centre and to coordinate responses to emergency incidents — has been enhanced with a new video analytic software which uses machine-learning algorithms to spot anomalies in human behaviour, such as disordered crowds or outliers in a queue.

“Unlike traditional video analytics whereby the rules are fixed, this algorithm makes real-time adjustments according to the data they have collected daily ... Things that happen out of the ordinary are flagged so that operators will pick them up and pay attention to it,” said Mr Lee.

All frontline staff have also been trained to spot suspicious items and characters that may be security threats, under an in-house competency building programme developed in 2015 by Sentosa and the Home Team Academy’s Centre for Protective Security Studies.

The programme is also open to staff employed by other operators on the island, including various hotels and hospitality services.