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As the world arrives for the World Cup 2026, host cities across North America are preparing for an unprecedented surge of visitors, activity and coordination complexity. Millions of fans will travel between stadiums, fan zones, transit hubs and city centers, creating one of the largest public safety coordination efforts in the world. For the agencies, venue operators and public safety professionals responsible for keeping communities safe, the difference comes from technology that helps teams see more, understand more, and respond faster as conditions change.
Guided by our mission to Protect Life, Axon is proud to support host cities through both longstanding partnerships and new deployments to strengthen situational awareness, coordination and response throughout the tournament. These technologies will help agencies across participating communities prepare for and secure tournament activities, while enabling them to tailor capabilities to their unique operational needs. Recognizing that the operational footprint of the World Cup extends far beyond the stadium gates, Axon also connects agencies and enterprise organizations through integrated solutions built for public-private partnership.
For FIFA, our security strategy is total visibility. Axon’s ecosystem—from our new First Responder Drones in the air to our real-time intelligence center on the ground—means we aren’t just responding to incidents; we are seeing them unfold before officers even arrive. This technology allows us to de-escalate situations faster, track threats across a crowded city, and ensure that while the world is watching Dallas, everyone inside and outside the stadium stays safe.
- Dallas Chief of Police Daniel C. Comeaux
Airspace Security Takes Center Stage
As ground security has matured, the airspace has become the gap agencies most need to close. Unauthorized drones near stadiums, fan zones and transit corridors create risk that traditional ground security cannot see. Dedrone, Axon's airspace security solution, helps agencies detect, track and identify drones operating near venues and other sensitive locations.
With World Cup 2026, Dedrone introduces Dedrone C2, the next evolution of its airspace security platform. More than a drone detection system, C2 helps Dedrone serve as a unified command-and-control platform for airspace security, now bringing every connected sensor into a single operational picture. C2 automatically tasks cameras to verify detections, helping operators rapidly distinguish legitimate threats from routine activity and maintain real-time awareness of the airspace.
When a response is warranted, and as public safety agencies gain expanded authority to act on drone threats under Safer Skies, C2 moves beyond detection to coordinated response by recommending mitigation options available on site and enabling authorized operators to act through a single workflow. Drone mitigation is carried out through coordinated operations between federal authorities and trained state and local public safety partners protecting the venue and surrounding airspace.
Dedrone C2's modern, intuitive interface helps operators become more effective quickly, reducing training requirements during high-pressure situations, while an open architecture integrates with a growing ecosystem of third-party sensors and effectors. This allows agencies to manage disparate detection, tracking and mitigation technologies through a common operating environment rather than separate systems. C2 also integrates with Dedrone Defender 2, the handheld counter-drone device that will also help protect the World Cup, so teams on foot and operators in the command center work from the same understanding of the threat.
Another new capability, Live View Sharing, extends that coordination beyond the command center. With a single link, an operator can share a live view of a drone, its pilot and its likely launch location with ground teams and partner agencies. The view updates in real time and can plot a route straight to the target, transforming airspace intelligence into coordinated action across the agencies responsible for event security.
Putting that capability on wheels is the Dedrone Advanced Trailer, making its debut for the tournament. A single trailer combines long-range radar, radio-frequency (RF) detection and decoding, and an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera for positive visual identification day or night, with an optional on-platform mitigation system. One system can detect, identify and respond to drones across stadiums, fan zones, transit corridors and VIP movements. A single operator can take it from tow to operational in under 15 minutes. Built on a ruggedized chassis and mast engineered for harsh environments, with onboard Starlink, 5G/LTE and LAN connectivity, the Advanced Trailer can run on site or link back to a central command center. Every Advanced Trailer runs Dedrone C2 and feeds the same airspace picture, so mobile coverage and fixed sites work as one.
This builds on Dedrone's track record helping secure the largest events in the world. Dedrone delivered the world's largest airspace security deployment at the 2022 World Cup, covering 46 sites and more than 900 square kilometers. For World Cup 2026, Dedrone is scaling that experience across a broader operational footprint through a platform purpose-built for multi-site coordination, helping protect all 11 U.S. World Cup stadiums, as well as more than 50 additional sites, including fan zones, team base camps, and other key venues.
A Connected Ecosystem Around the Airspace Picture
Airspace awareness is most powerful when it feeds the wider security picture, and that is the role of Fusus, Axon's real-time operations platform. Fusus is a real-time crime center in the cloud: a single pane of glass that pulls live video, sensors, 911 and computer-aided dispatch, drone detections and officer locations onto one shared map. It connects an agency's existing cameras and systems rather than replacing them, and Axon Vision adds AI that flags critical activity in those feeds so operators can verify and respond faster. For an event spread across many agencies and three host nations, its biggest contribution is coordination: role-based, policy-governed access lets command staff, field officers and partner agencies work from the same picture while each keeps control of its own assets. Dedrone C2 integrates with Fusus, so airspace activity appears alongside everything else, and with Axon 911 agencies can bring early call intelligence and live video from partner agencies into that picture as situations develop.
Beyond the airspace, agencies maintain awareness across venues, corridors, fan zones and public gathering spaces. Fixed automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras, including Axon Outpost and Axon Lightpost, and mobile ALPR through Axon Fleet 3 bring vehicle detections and live video into Fusus, where agencies can search, alert and coordinate across sources in real time. Combined with drone solutions through Axon Air and voluntary, permission-based camera sharing through Community Connect, agencies build a more complete operating picture.
As information flows into command centers and response teams, Axon Assistant’s AI-powered capabilities built into Axon Body 4 cameras can provide relevant information and help personnel respond with greater confidence. Recognizing the communication challenges that come with hosting a global event like the World Cup, Axon offered customers not yet using language translation the ability to trial the service during the tournament to help support personnel as they interact with visitors from around the world. Real-Time Translation helps responders and event staff communicate in more than 50 languages, while the ability to ask general knowledge questions and quickly access policy, procedure and operational guidance via Axon Assistant can help teams respond more effectively during periods of heightened activity.
Built for the Moments That Matter
The World Cup is one moment. The need it represents isn't. Real-time awareness, coordinated response, and informed decision-making matter just as much during routine operations, and that's the thinking behind Community Shield — a scalable approach from Axon that helps agencies build a connected operating picture by bringing together real-time crime centers, Drone as First Responder programs, counter-drone systems, ALPR and a broad ecosystem of integrated technologies. The result is greater visibility, stronger coordination and increased confidence for agencies working to protect their communities every day.
To the agencies and professionals serving throughout the tournament: we extend our gratitude. Your commitment to protecting communities and responding when it matters most is exactly the kind of work this technology is built to support. We are proud to support the work you do to keep fans, athletes and communities safe throughout the tournament and beyond.