DRONES are being used to prevent Just Stop Oil and other protest groups from ruining more major sporting events this summer.
The specially developed drones were used at the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston, which passed without disruption.
They swiftly fly around stadiums, livestreaming footage of the crowd, and can instantly identify potential pitch invaders.
The eye-in-the-sky is part of British firm Halo Solutions’ v5 crowd control system, which also includes live video streaming from CCTV.
Founded by crowd safety expert and former National Counter Terrorism Unit specialist tactical support officer Lloyd Major, the firm said its system can also be used to tackle terrorists and ticket touts.
The spokesman said: “Halo’s innovative tech platform provides operations control rooms and security teams with the ability to track and monitor every range of security threat, crowd safety and the overall safety of an event, proactively identifying potential threats from protestors, extremists and terrorist threats.
“With the new Halo Drone Stream and in-house pilots, the solution can be rapidly deployed to an event to provide continuous livestream footage directly into the Halo incident and threat management platform.
“This means event operations and security teams can monitor, assess and react to persons acting suspiciously, crowd tension, security threats or a protest group planning an attack, based on real-time, live information.”
The system was also used at April’s Reading Half Marathon and Flavours of Fingal, one of Ireland’s largest county shows attended by more than 80,000 people.
The company said: “The second Ashes Test at Lord’s, which was disrupted by Just Stop Oil, wasn’t using our drones.”
It said it is in discussions about deploying the drones at the remaining cricket Tests — and is in talks with racecourses.
