Armed forces in South Africa have experimented with smartphone technology in a bid to better protect the country’s borders.

This is according to the latest annual report of South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which says it has helped the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) to test out technology that could help it better protect the country’s borders.

Smuggling, the influx of illegal immigrants, deficient fencing and limited capacity are among challenges facing South African border safeguarding forces, who consist of the likes of the country’s defence force as well as police.

South Africa also has large borders consisting of approximately 2,800 km of coastline, 4,800 km of land borders as well as over 1.2 million square kilometres of air space.

As a result, the CSIR says in its latest annual report that it has developed a web-based command and control collaborator system – called ‘Cmore’ – to help border forces better observe activities and incidents in the field.

The CSIR reveals that in February 2013, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) tested Cmore in an experiment that involved internet-based links among towns and cities that include Musina, Polokwane and Pretoria.

“‘Cmore’ was developed with involvement of Armscor (the Armaments Corporation of South Africa) and helps operators better observe activities and incidents in the field,” says the CSIR report.

“They can observe operator positions (real-time), receive photographic images, receive instant text messages and map positions. When an incident occurs, a unit is dispatched via this system, and its progress is tracked on a screen,” adds the report.

Apart from Cmore, the SANDF has also tested other border control technologies in February this year, says the CSIR.

“The experiment drew on a range of technologies, including unmanned aerial systems capturing video views, cellular telephone intercepts, jamming of global positioning systems, video and audio conferencing and sharing of remote computer desktops,” says the CSIR.