World Cup propels surveillance to new heights 

Anne Toomey McKenna, Penn State

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the largest sporting event in history. It’s also the most surveilled World Cup ever. If you’re visiting or traveling around host cities, then you and your face, behavior, movement and devices are being monitored by governments and private companies.

The U.S. government funneled more than US$1 billion to World Cup security to protect transit hubs, stadiums and surrounding areas; improve tactical operations such as bomb squads and SWAT teams; and add and upgrade equipment. It’s been a bonanza for the private sector.

Much of the investment in surveillance was done in the name of preventing harm from unauthorized drone use. Indeed, protecting against that threat is helping fuel the rapidly expanding government-private sector partnership in surveillance technology development and acquisition, which poses a different risk – to privacy.

As an attorney, author and educator who has worked for decades in privacy and surveillance, I’ve advised law enforcement about using drones and understand that security is critical to keeping people safe. The argument for security, however, is too often the catalyst to fund, develop and increase government surveillance capabilities that erode civil liberties, chill speech and undermine freedom of association.

And in my experience, surveillance-friendly policies and tech systems, once in place, rarely go away.

The level of surveillance around this World Cup and changes in U.S. law and immigration policies prompted over 120 civil society groups – including Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union – to issue a travel advisory. They warn that people visiting the U.S. may be subject to harms that breach the country’s legal human rights obligations.

That advisory lists risks of invasive social media screening, searches of electronic devices, racial profiling, arrest, detention, deportation and even death. European governments have issued travel advisories warning of surveillance and profiling as well.

AI-driven surveillance is playing a major role across the World Cup. The stadiums in host cities are equipped with facial recognition cameras that can collect and analyze facial biometrics of people in and around the stadiums. That data can be retained and used in future ways, unknown and uncontrolled by those whose biometric data has been collected.

The proliferation of facial recognition at events reflects a broader global trend normalizing biometric surveillance as these systems expand across cities.

Many states, like New York, are using federal funding for World Cup security to increase the number, capabilities and use of drones by law enforcement. Drones are remarkably capable and powerful surveillance tools easy to load with cameras, microphones, advanced sensors and weapons.

AI-supported autonomous software allows drones to monitor areas, track movement and gather intelligence. The drones can be powerful enough to scan entire cities or zoom in and read a milk carton from 60,000 feet (18,288 meters).

Cameras are proliferating on the ground, as well. Robot dogs equipped with cameras are prowling in Dallas and New Jersey. And Seattle’s mayor decided to turn on and expand a major closed-circuit television system that had been previously shut down because of biometric privacy concerns.

The real test is what happens after the World Cup ends and visitors go home. There is little oversight or governance around these federally funded, public-private surveillance tech partnerships.

It’s difficult for the public to determine what data is being collected, how that data is being used, shared and analyzed, and what will happen to these systems, partnerships and data when the final match concludes.

Federal, state and local legislators have an opportunity to address much of this by creating data privacy and AI systems compliance safeguards and requiring transparency, but in my view, governance efforts to date don’t bode well.

[Abridged]