- The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the most surveilled sporting event ever, with autonomous robot dogs, hunter drones and AI‑driven cameras installed at venues.
- Organisers have placed autonomous patrol units at each of the 16 host cities, deploying robot dogs that can navigate crowds and drones equipped to fire nets at airborne threats. Thousands of cameras with built‑in facial‑recognition and behaviour‑analysis algorithms will feed live video to a central command centre throughout the 39‑day, 104‑match tournament.
- The scale of deployment aims to deter terrorism and crowd‑control incidents, but it also raises questions about privacy and the limits of automated policing in public spaces.
- While the technology promises faster response times, it adds another layer of surveillance to an event already under intense public scrutiny.