The upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea will have a fair share of security measures and these measures will include drones that will be used to catch other drones. The security is tight in all events in Korea but they are focusing on protecting the airspace for the first time.
The security forces of the Olympics will deploy tactical drones to be on the lookout for terrorist drones. This is out of fear of hobby drones being weaponized and used for attacks. The defence drones operated by the South Korean police can shoot out nets to capture other flying threats.
Korea will also be deploying a tactical plane equipped with CCTV facial recognition to monitor the crowds on the ground. The tactical planes have the ability to record the action on the ground from an altitude of 150 to 200 meters. It can directly send alerts to deploy additional personnel to an area in case it detects a threat.
There are also three X-ray search vehicles available on the ground for the anti-terrorism security unit. They will be patrolling the streets for hidden people and weapons. North Korea is sending its own athletes to the games so a chance of an attack from the North is pretty low but South Korea is taking no chances and more than 50,000 personnel will be deployed for the duration of the games.
The efforts by the South Koreans to host safe and professional games have been noticed by the rest of the world. Elizabeth McAleer, with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, said “If the US government didn’t deem these games to be safe, we wouldn’t be here right now. The host government and local law enforcement and military have done a great job in putting security levels — around each venue and people should feel safe”.
The United States will send about 200 athletes to the games along with 100 U.S. State Department security agents. “We always have contingency plans, ranging from everything small — fire in a venue could be one thing — all the way up to more extreme scenarios,” Special Agent Kevin Williams told online media. “It is the biggest sporting event on the globe especially right now, especially with all the fans coming in from different countries. It adds another element of uncertainty as to what could possibly happen to the athletes or to the fans or to the public in general,”
The Winter Olympics will be kicking off in South Korea this Friday and let’s hope that they do manage to go without a hitch.