Halo Streams Drone Data of the Crowd to Combat Criminal and Terrorist Activity at Sporting Events

Halo Solutions Drone Technology Deployed at Sporting Events to Combat Protester Threats

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

Halo Solutions, the developer of incident and threat management platform Halo (V5), is deploying its live streaming drone technology Halo Stream at major sporting events to monitor protester activity, persons of interest, ticket touts and crowd safety. Using live streaming technology with Halo (v5) significantly improves its capability and offers a vital link for gathering intelligence, surveillance, combatting protester activity at major sporting events and assisting in counter terrorism surveillance and reconnaissance.

“With the marked increase of threats from protestor and activist attacks at major sporting events, the safety and security of crowds and event stakeholders has never been more important,” said Halo Solutions founder Lloyd Major, a crowd safety expert and former National Counter Terrorism Unit Specialist Tactical Support Officer. “We have also seen increased terror threat levels domestically and overseas with a number of terrorist organisations and training camps active in Afghanistan. It is well known that Afghanistan has now become a safe space and haven  for terrorist groups to train, operate and mount attacks against the West alongside other global geopolitical unrest.

The integration of live video streaming from sources like drones, CCTV, body-worn video and mobile phones to our existing Halo (v5) incident and threat management platform really does play a significant role in countering protestor activity, identifying persons of interest and playing a proactive role in crowd safety and counter terrorism strategies. Combined with previous and existing event intelligence, we can provide proactive surveillance and reconnaissance direct to the control room.”

The Halo (v5) live stream drone technology was recently deployed to the Reading Half Marathon, the Ashes series at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, and Flavours of Fingal, one of Ireland’s largest county shows with more than 80,000 attendees.

At the Ashes Test Series in Birmingham, the Halo drone and integrated threat management platform were deployed to form a unique turnkey security and intelligence operation, working alongside Edgbaston Cricket Ground’s major event security and intelligence center. The Halo (v5) drone streaming technology successfully tagged and tracked multiple persons of interest and captured footage commanded by operators on the ground, all while live streaming into the command-and-control post in the operation rooms. Several persons of interest, a known protester and six ticket touts were identified, tracked and streamed back into the Halo System in the control room.

The new Halo Drone Stream and in-house pilots allow for the solution to be quickly deployed to an event to grant live stream footage directly into the Halo incident and threat management platform. This lets event operations and security teams monitor, assess and react to suspicious individuals, crowd tension, security threats or a protest group planning an attack, based on real-time, live information.

“Using the Halo Drone Stream platform to bring live footage directly into Edgbaston’s major event control at the Ashes Test brought a new dynamic to safely managing Zone X,” said David Clarke, Major Event Safety Officer to Warwickshire County Cricket Club, which staged the First Test of the 2023 Ashes Series. “The system’s real-time capabilities meant we could dynamically monitor for protestor activity, touts and persons of interest, as well as gaining oversight on crowd flows and key junctions surrounding the stadium for the biggest occasion of the year. This brought real-time insights and intelligence to decision-makers in our control room, and the fact that we can instantly tag footage as evidence directly onto incidents in the Halo system is a game-changer for our reporting to keep our crowds and venue safe at every event we host.”

“With Halo, we have created the only seamless incident and threat management platform that can ingest multiple live streams of footage from any source: drone, bodycam footage, CCTV and mobile,” said Halo Solutions CEO Lloyd Major. “The technology synchronises and connects the pilot operator on the ground to control with the highest quality live stream footage that is completely targeted to the biggest threats currently presented. This seamless flow of information allows serious and – in some cases – life-altering decisions to be taken much quicker, with intelligence and critical decision-making governed by real time information. This is a vitally important aspect to assist a control room to help prevent protestor activity, a major crowd safety issue, or to help prevent the very real threat of a terrorist attack.”

Deploying Halo Drone alongside a designated drone pilot and live stream of footage into Halo’s threat management system provides a full turnkey operation for managing the safety and security of major events, allowing for intelligence gathering of threats, crowd monitoring, and counter terrorism surveillance. This technology is able to monitor in daylight or at night in infra-red, as well as tag individuals and vehicles and use AI to track them across the site’s field of operation or beyond.

The Halo (v5) platform is already being deployed at some of the world’s most high-profile events, such as the FIFA World Cup Fan Zones in Qatar (2022), Cricket World Cup (2019), the Formula 1 Aramco British Grand Prix, Notting Hill Carnival, Glastonbury Festival and Eurovision 2023. It is also employed year-round at arenas and conference venues throughout the UK, including The NEC Group, Motorpoint Arena, M&S Bank Arena and ExCeL London. The Halo System sees significant use at football, rugby and cricket stadiums, including Chelsea FC, West Bromwich Albion, Mansfield Town, Watford FC and Premiership Rugby clubs Harlequins and Leicester Tigers.

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Ian attended Dominican University of California, where he received a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and a keen interest in technology, he is now contributing to DroneLife as a staff writer.