From power plants and airports to logistics hubs and industrial sites, Europe’s critical infrastructure is facing a new security dimension above the conventional perimeter. A visit by former German Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder to LivEye’s Drone Competence Centre highlights a challenge that is rapidly moving up the European security agenda: detecting an unauthorised drone is only the beginning. The real task is to understand what it means, assess the risk and initiate the right response.

For decades, physical security was built around a comparatively clear geometry. Critical assets were protected by fences, gates, access control, perimeter detection and video surveillance. The underlying assumption was straightforward: a potential intruder would have to approach the site, cross a physical boundary and enter a protected area.

Drones have fundamentally altered this model. An unmanned aircraft does not need to breach a fence to create a security problem. It can approach a power plant, industrial complex, logistics hub, railway installation or other sensitive facility from above, remain outside the conventional perimeter and still observe operations, collect information or interfere with activities on the ground. Depending on its equipment, flight pattern and purpose, the same technology that is routinely used for inspections, surveying or photography can also become a means of reconnaissance or disruption.

For security managers, this means that the lower airspace can no longer be treated as an area outside the traditional security architecture. It is increasingly becoming part of the perimeter itself.

That was the wider issue behind former German Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder’s visit to the Drone Competence Centre operated by LivEye in Landscheid. Together with LivEye Managing Director Carsten Simons, Schnieder discussed the increasing number of drone incidents, the protection of critical infrastructure and the question of how companies and public authorities can improve their ability to detect, assess and respond to suspicious activity in the airspace surrounding sensitive facilities.

What appears at first to be a highly technical discussion is in fact a much broader security challenge. As drones become more capable and their legitimate use expands across industry, infrastructure inspection and emergency response, operators must not only improve detection. They must become better at distinguishing between routine activity and behaviour that may indicate a security threat.

From detection to situational awareness

This distinction is at the heart of modern counter-drone security.

A sensor can indicate that an airborne object has entered a defined area, but the information is of limited value unless it can be placed in context. Security personnel need to know whether the flight is authorised, where the aircraft came from, which route it is following, how long it has remained near the facility and whether its behaviour is unusual. A drone that passes briefly along the edge of an industrial site raises different questions from one that repeatedly approaches a sensitive installation or remains stationary above a particular asset.

Patrick Schnieder pointed to precisely this challenge during his visit. In his assessment, the intensity of drone incidents has increased considerably, while a proportion of potentially relevant activity is likely to remain undetected. Developing effective drone detection is therefore not simply about increasing the number of technical systems in use. It is about transforming individual observations into a reliable situational picture.

For operators of critical infrastructure, this is an important distinction. Early detection does not automatically provide an answer; it creates the information required to make an informed decision.

That capability becomes particularly important because many critical facilities are extensive, complex and difficult to monitor continuously. Energy installations, transport hubs, industrial sites and logistics centres may have well-developed physical security systems at ground level, while the airspace above them has traditionally received much less attention. A facility can therefore be highly secure against unauthorised access and still have only limited awareness of activities taking place above its perimeter.

The result is a fundamental change in physical security planning. The perimeter is becoming three-dimensional.

Drone detection should therefore not be understood as a replacement for video surveillance, access control or perimeter intrusion detection. Its value lies in adding another layer to the existing security architecture and, ideally, linking information from the air with events on the ground. A suspicious flight may gain significance, for example, if it coincides with unusual activity close to a perimeter, repeated vehicle movements or other anomalies detected by existing systems.

In this sense, counter-drone technology is not primarily about adding another alarm source. It is about improving the quality of the overall operational picture.

Europe faces the same problem on a larger scale

Although the discussion in Landscheid focused on Germany, the underlying challenge is European.

Critical infrastructure rarely operates in isolation. Energy networks span national borders, ports serve supply chains extending across the continent, railway corridors link multiple Member States, and telecommunications and digital infrastructure support services far beyond the location at which they are physically installed. An incident at one facility may therefore have consequences for systems and services elsewhere.

The same applies to the assessment of suspicious drone activity. An isolated flight above a single industrial facility may be accidental or insignificant. Repeated activity around several energy, transport, communications or defence-related sites can have an entirely different meaning. The more fragmented the available information remains, the more difficult it becomes to recognise such patterns.

This makes situational awareness relevant beyond the individual site. Europe increasingly needs structures that allow operators and competent authorities to understand drone incidents not only as local events but, where appropriate, as part of a wider security picture. Detection, documentation, information-sharing and cooperation between infrastructure operators and public authorities are therefore becoming increasingly important elements of resilience planning.

At the same time, Europe faces an additional complication: it is not trying to eliminate drones from its airspace. Quite the opposite. Unmanned aircraft are becoming increasingly valuable tools for infrastructure inspection, surveying, logistics, emergency services, energy applications and industrial operations. Legitimate drone traffic is therefore likely to increase rather than decline.

Counter-drone security must consequently become more selective, not merely more sensitive.

A system that generates an alarm for every aircraft in the vicinity of a facility may create more operational noise than security value. The decisive capability is the ability to distinguish an expected and authorised flight from an unknown or suspicious one. As drone traffic becomes more structured and more closely integrated into controlled airspace, contextual information about legitimate operations will become increasingly valuable for security organisations.

Knowing that something is flying above a site is useful. Knowing that it is there without any corresponding authorised operation is much more useful.

Detection only becomes valuable when the organisation can respond

This leads to the most important operational question. What happens after a drone has been detected?

The answer cannot be purely technical. A reliable counter-drone concept requires the detection system to be integrated into existing security and incident-management structures. Information from the airspace has to become part of the same operational environment as video surveillance, perimeter protection, access control, alarm management and crisis response.

For infrastructure operators, the organisational dimension is therefore just as important as the quality of the sensors themselves.

A drone incident may involve corporate security, site management, crisis management, legal teams, communications functions and external authorities at the same time. If responsibilities have not been defined in advance, valuable minutes can be lost despite flawless detection technology. Security staff must know who receives the initial alert, who verifies it, what information has to be documented, which criteria justify escalation and when the competent authorities need to be involved.

Relevant information may include the drone’s position and direction of travel, the duration of the flight, repeated approaches, proximity to sensitive assets and any activity detected simultaneously on the ground. The objective is to transform a technical event into information that is sufficiently reliable and structured to support an operational decision.

This also explains why the distinction between detection and active intervention is so important.

The technical ability to identify a suspicious drone does not automatically give a private operator the authority to interfere with its flight. Measures that disrupt communications, alter a drone’s trajectory or force it to land can affect aviation safety, telecommunications and public security and are therefore subject to significantly more complex legal restrictions.

For critical infrastructure operators, the practical consequence is clear: an effective counter-drone strategy cannot be based solely on the ability to neutralise an aircraft. Its first priority must be to create reliable information, preserve evidence, establish an accurate picture of the event and ensure that the competent authority can be involved quickly and effectively.

The stronger detection capabilities become, the more important the interface between private operators and public authorities will become as well.

Training closes the gap between technology and response

This is also where practical training becomes relevant.

LivEye’s Drone Competence Centre in Landscheid is intended to provide companies, authorities and critical infrastructure operators with an environment in which drone detection technologies and operational scenarios can be experienced under realistic conditions. The objective is not simply to demonstrate what a system can detect, but to examine how an organisation reacts once an alert has been generated.

This practical approach addresses a weakness familiar from many areas of security management. Procedures that appear coherent on paper can reveal considerable gaps when tested under operational conditions.

A detection system may work as intended while the organisation behind it still struggles to respond effectively. The control room may receive an alert without knowing which additional cameras should be used to verify the event. Responsibilities for escalation may be unclear, information may not be documented consistently, or the process for contacting law enforcement may take too long.

Such weaknesses cannot be solved simply by procuring more sophisticated technology. They have to be identified through exercises and incorporated into security and crisis-management procedures.

For operators of critical infrastructure, counter-drone preparedness should therefore increasingly be treated in the same way as other resilience scenarios. The objective is not to prepare for one predefined incident, but to ensure that technical systems, trained personnel, decision-making processes and external cooperation function together under pressure.

Counter-drone security becomes part of European resilience

This broader approach also fits into the evolution of European critical infrastructure protection.

The EU’s Critical Entities Resilience framework has increased the emphasis on physical resilience and on the ability of essential service providers to assess a broad spectrum of natural and man-made risks. From an operational perspective, drone-related incidents fit naturally into such an all-hazards approach.

The implications for security managers go beyond the question of whether a particular detection technology should be installed. Operators increasingly need to consider whether unauthorised drone activity is relevant to the threat profile of their facility, whether that risk has been incorporated into security planning and whether appropriate procedures exist to detect, assess and escalate an incident.

There can be no universal technical blueprint.

An airport operates in an entirely different airspace environment from a power station. A nuclear facility has different protection requirements from a logistics centre. A large seaport faces different conditions from an urban data centre or a remote industrial complex.

What can be standardised, however, are the underlying operational principles: threats have to be identified, information needs to be assessed and documented, responsibilities must be clearly assigned and cooperation with competent authorities has to be prepared in advance.

This becomes particularly relevant for organisations operating facilities in several European countries. Security responsibilities, reporting procedures and public-sector competences can differ considerably between jurisdictions, while infrastructure networks and corporate operations increasingly cross borders.

Europe therefore does not necessarily need identical counter-drone technologies at every site. It needs greater consistency in how incidents are assessed, communicated and managed.

Such an approach would preserve the flexibility required for different risk profiles while making cooperation between operators and authorities more reliable.

The decisive issue is not the sensor, but the response

Drone security is consequently developing from a specialist technology field into a broader element of resilience management.

The underlying principles are familiar: early detection, reliable assessment, clearly assigned responsibilities, documented procedures, trained personnel and rapid escalation. What is new is the environment in which these principles have to be applied. The lower airspace, long outside the main focus of physical security strategies, is becoming part of the operational security picture.

As legitimate drone use expands, that airspace will also become more complex. Security organisations will have to distinguish increasingly precisely between authorised operations, accidental violations and genuinely suspicious behaviour. Simply detecting more objects will therefore not necessarily make a facility safer. The quality of the information and the ability to interpret it will become more important than the number of alerts generated.

The discussion surrounding LivEye’s Drone Competence Centre is therefore representative of a much wider European development. Technology has made it increasingly possible to identify activity that previously remained invisible. The next task is to integrate this capability into security organisations in a way that enables proportionate and timely decisions.

For companies, this means connecting airspace monitoring with existing security and crisis-management structures. For authorities, it requires clear responsibilities and reliable channels for cooperation with private operators. And at European level, it points towards a need for increasingly compatible operational principles across sectors and national borders.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of counter-drone security will not be measured by how many sensors surround a facility. It will be measured by whether an organisation can identify an unusual event early enough, understand its significance and initiate the appropriate response before a potential threat develops into an incident.

A reliable situational picture is therefore not the end point of drone defence. It is the condition that makes an effective response possible in the first place.