On an overcast Tuesday in April, a Black Hawk helicopter hovered above the roof of the decommissioned Hearn generating station in Toronto’s Port Lands. Members of the RCMP Emergency Response Team advanced on the building in formation, wearing gas masks and ballistic helmets equipped with night vision goggles. Toronto Police’s Emergency Task Force moved in unison through the building’s damp interior, armed with automatic rifles.
The exercise was called Vital Archer, a training drill involving Canadian and American agencies designed to confront weapons-of-mass-destruction threats. Though it had been running since 2013, this was the first year that a Canadian city’s police force had been invited to take part. The Toronto Police Service (TPS) claimed that the training would also inform planning for major events like the FIFA World Cup, while repeatedly insisting that there was no present threat to public safety.
That combination — no present threat, but here’s the gear — was the pitch for using the tournament as a live exercise for new surveillance infrastructure that might have otherwise faced public scrutiny, if it ever got off the ground at all.
The FIFA Loophole
Earlier in the spring, Chief Myron Demkiw launched Task Force Guardian and a dedicated counterterrorism unit, equipping officers with semi-automatic rifles that would normally be reserved for high-risk scenarios and stationing them more visibly at synagogues, transit hubs and tourist sites, citing FIFA as a factor.
“I want to be clear today that this is not about any particular threat,” he said.
In May, the city unveiled the Toronto Integrated Safety and Security Unit Area Command Centre, or TACC. It’s a $12.5 million facility to coordinate police, fire, paramedics, the TTC, Metrolinx, Toronto Hydro and other city services, and to monitor activity across the city in real time using TPS surveillance drones and the city’s camera infrastructure.
Mayor Olivia Chow called it “part of the lasting legacy” of the World Cup. Chief Demkiw agreed, saying that the facility was built for FIFA, but that it would service police operations beyond the tournament, noting that the existing command centre had “outgrown our capacity for our day-to-day activities.”
The TACC was funded through TPS’ capital expenditures, but they also tapped into the FIFA security budget for a separate counter-drone detection system to intercept unauthorized drones near World Cup-related sites. TPS spokesperson Stephanie Sayer acknowledged to CBC Toronto that “in many cases, the individuals we’ve encountered appear to be people who are excited about the tournament and may not realize they are flying in restricted airspace.” In the same statement, she added: “Our concern is not simply the intent of the operator. Drones can create significant safety and security risks in the context of a major international event.”
Ahead of the opening match, CBC The National was given exclusive access to test the system in a segment called, “Can police catch our rogue drone? Testing World Cup defences.” A staged cat-and-mouse drill unfolded over tense music and the system located both the drone and its pilot within minutes. The reporter noted that police were “not able to show the drone interception technology in place due to national security restrictions.”
Who built the system, what it costs and where the data goes never appeared in the segment, or in any of the coverage that followed. But there are clues.
In April, U.S.-based Ondas announced contracts to deploy its AI-powered Sentrycs counter-drone system across most World Cup venues in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Sentrycs was originally founded by two veterans of Unit 8200, the Israel Defense Forces’ elite intelligence and cyber warfare unit, and although it was acquired in November 2025 by Ondas Holdings, the company remains headquartered in Israel. In its press release, Ondas describes the technology as “field-proven” — meaning it was tested in active conflict zones — and Sentrycs uses Oct. 7 as a sales pitch on its website, noting that their systems are bolstered by classified IDF intelligence.
The Accountability Gap
Under the Toronto Police Service Board’s own policy, no new AI technology can be acquired without a risk assessment, which includes an evaluation of the vendor’s record on data security and ethical practices. TPS did not respond to questions about whether they used Sentrycs or whether any such review took place. Sentrycs declined to name its clients without their approval.
The police board — the civilian body responsible for overseeing new AI technologies — said only that “all TPS FIFA activities were conducted in accordance with Board policies and Service procedures,” pointing to a general FIFA update that made no mention of a risk assessment. The Sentrycs drone system doesn’t appear on TPS’ disclosure of AI technologies in use, which lists facial recognition, license plate readers and video analysis software.
Asked whether this constitutes an adequate account, former police board chair and human rights advocate Alok Mukherjee replied, “absolutely not,” adding that “compliance is not based on assurance of good faith [or] someone’s word,” but rather involves a public report from the chief that lays out the assessment methodology in full.
Mukherjee recalls a similar situation from his tenure: the G20 conference. Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper had designated it a federal special event and committed to covering security costs, the police board had concluded that its oversight role no longer applied. But when class action lawsuits were filed over the mass arrests made during the conference, the board was the defendant. After a decade in court, the city was ordered to pay out a $16.5 million settlement.
Weeks before the World Cup tournament began, Toronto’s Auditor General found that TPS lacked any mechanism for delaying the use of new technology until privacy risks had been addressed, calling it an “accountability gap.” The report also observed that the Service’s only staff member dedicated to assessing those risks had been reassigned to support World Cup preparations. The auditor recommended that the board proactively ask the chief about new technologies under consideration that would require privacy assessments — including, it noted, new use cases for drones.
Mostly Fans
So what did the threat actually look like? Turns out it was mostly fans themselves.
Two weeks before the opening match, TPS held a press conference to announce the seizure of 16,000 counterfeit jerseys from a Mississauga warehouse following a complaint from a brand protection law firm retained by FIFA’s corporate partners.
As of July 4, police had intercepted 26 unauthorized drones and charged their owners with regulatory fines averaging $250. A man was tackled and arrested for dressing up as a bush to watch a Portugal practice. A 64-year-old retiree was charged with trespassing for standing outside the stadium holding a sign that read “FIFA = Greed.” He said he’d paid $50 for a ticket for a game in Qatar, while Toronto seats started at $1,300.
Toronto got six World Cup matches, and for all the expense, most of us watched in the streets, in bars and on screens. But the long lasting impact will be much harder to see.
As surveillance scholar Anne Toomey McKenna wrote for The Conversation: “surveillance-friendly policies and tech systems, once in place, rarely go away.”
