Dual-use tech: the Thales example

The drone was produced for the British army by the Thales-Elbit joint venture, UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS). The RAF’s fleet of Watchkeepers was little used, and the £1.35bn system – whose production was marred by repeated delays and spiralling costs – is being retired early after having been out-performed by smaller, cheaper and more agile drones. The army’s principal deployment of the Watchkeeper was not so much in combat (having seen a brief mission in Afghanistan), but rather to monitor migrant crossings in the Channel in support of UK Border Force. Although the drone itself is not armed, the Watchkeeper possesses a laser rangefinder to aid precision targeting by other weapons systems.

Another Thales drone currently in development is the UAS100, a long-range surveillance system developed with the assistance of the French military. It was promoted at the 2024 UK Policing Expo event for “managing public safety”. However, on Thales’ website, it is described as being for “civil, government and military users”, and is marketed for a range of purposes including border surveillance, combat missions, event security, agricultural uses, search and rescue, and wildfire monitoring. The UAS100 can be fitted with thermal imaging cameras, electro-optical sensors, radar systems, gas detectors, and remote sensing systems to detect vegetation.

Thales also sells AI-powered technology to defend against drones. One such product is EagleShield C-UAS, a radar and electro-optical sensor system which detects, identifies, tracks and jams unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and comes with an optional “hard kill” weapons system. It is sold to both the military and police to protect airports and other critical infrastructure, and is in use at London’s Heathrow airport.

Thales has expanded its military surveillance to the field of immigration control with the Gecko long-range thermal imaging camera and electro-optical sensor platform.

Produced by Thales Spain, Gecko was supplied to the country’s military in 2013 for convoy escort in Afghanistan. Arriving late in the army’s deployment, the system was then repurposed for general security in the Canary Islands, and possibly for border monitoring in the migration hotspot. Gecko is known to play a role in surveilling Spain’s borders – notably at the notorious Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, where it is reported to have been used since at least 2016. The enclaves have seen repeated migrant tragedies, with increased controls and the lack of safe and legal routes to enter Europe driving people to more dangerous tactics, such as mass attempts to scale the fences. In June 2022, Melilla was the location of a massacre when up to 2,000 people were attacked by Moroccan and Spanish forces guarding the perimeter, resulting in the deaths of dozens of mostly Sudanese migrants.

EagleShield and Gecko have been combined with “all the currently available information-gathering equipment” to produce a system named Horus, a “smart surveillance solution” with civil and military applications. According to a Thales marketing manager, Horus could be adapted to the needs of each client “whether it’s a city, a prison, or an airport [translation]”. The system has reportedly been used to protect sporting events and critical infrastructure “in urbanized areas with disadvantaged populations and hostile groups”, although where exactly remains unclear.

Horus illustrates Thales’ ‘modular’ approach to marketing its spy tech: drones can be bought with a specific configuration of sensors, and these can be combined with a selection of other customisable devices, with data centralised in a command and control system. For example, Horus forms part of the new ‘integrated surveillance system’ supplied to Melilla in December 2023 by Thales and Spanish security firm Trablisa. Operated by the Guardia Civil, it provides a network of cameras and sensors with a centralised control station for monitoring the border.

Melilla is not the only site of migrant repression where Thales plays a role. Investigators from the Calais Research project found that Thales was commissioned by the Calais port authorities to supply a holistic surveillance and access control, including sensors, cameras and a central surveillance station. They also identified a suspected Thales military drone – the Spycopter – paid for by Eurotunnel in 2016 to monitor the entrance of the tunnel. Dozens of migrants have died seeking entry to the UK via the tunnel and the freight that passes through it. As with the situation in Melilla, critics argue that the heightened security and lack of legal routes are pushing people to adopt more dangerous strategies to cross the border.

But Thales’ modular approach is perhaps best illustrated in its ‘Smart Cities’ tech. Smart Cities is a marketing concept to promote surveillance systems which are purported to improve a city’s functioning in myriad ways. Described by the company as “agile” and “modular”, Thales’ Smart Digital Platform is one such system, which is sold in varied configurations for civilian and military contexts. It sources real-time data from sensors, cameras, drones, biometric access controls and cyber security systems. Combining this with AI-powered analytics, including behavioural analysis, it proceeds to issue recommendations of “appropriate actions” to users such as police and military agencies. This is used for purposes including crowd mapping, traffic flow visualisation, energy efficiency, control of access to buildings, prevention of cyber attacks, and monitoring ‘suspicious’ activity. Despite claims to benign ends, these systems are vast, continual data-gathering projects occurring in peacetime contexts, and have been dubbed “Surveillance Cities” and “high-tech Panopticons”.

One variant is sold for “Military and Critical Sites”. The company does not specify details of how it is used in military contexts, however the smart cities concept has been applied to securing military installations; for example, it features prominently in the 2020 US Army Installations Strategy, a 15-year plan to modernise the country’s army bases.

Thales’ Smart Digital Platform may have built on the company’s work in Mexico, where it was a key partner in Mexico City’s ‘Safe City’ project. Thales says it proposed and co-implemented an urban security system in the city involving widespread video surveillance and drones, which were integrated into communications networks. In 2023, Thales was hired to provide ‘Smart & Safe Cities’ systems to Vietnam. The agreement was presided over by the prime ministers of Vietnam and France – the latter being Thales’ main institutional shareholder and the former colonial power in the region. The same year, Thales struck a similar deal for Nusantara, the new city under construction in the Bornean rainforest, due to replace Jakarta as Indonesia’s capital. It also formed a strategic partnership with Egyptian firm Hassan Allam Construction to deliver the Smart Digital Platform to Egypt, with a plan to expand the system together to other Middle Eastern nations. Thales claims it has secured the Hajj to Mecca, and that it has been used to safeguard Saudi Arabia’s AlUla archaeological site. In 2024, the platform was selected for adoption in seven Indian airports run by the multinational conglomerate Adani Group.

According to Thales executives, this export of dual-use surveillance tech is crucial to covering costs of production, since the technology is evolving too quickly to stay competitive when relying on the domestic market alone.

Partnerships & programmes

Thales operates a number of significant joint ventures, notably in the space sector. Its space technology is produced through two partnerships with Italian arms firm, Leonardo: Thales Alenia Space, in which Thales is the leading party; and Telespazio, where it is a minority shareholder.

Thales Alenia Space describes its purpose as to manufacture dual-use satellites for communications and earth observation. For instance, from 2007-22 it built two generations of COSMO-SkyMed imaging satellites for the Italian space agency and defence ministry. Their missions include scientific and archaeological research, disaster management, and surveillance for “defence and security assurance”. Besides their use by the Italian and allied defence ministries, they have been employed to monitor natural disasters, such as the impact of wildfires in Australia and the devastating earthquakes which shook Turkey and Syria in 2023. Researchers can submit requests to access the data for free via an online portal.

In 2024, in response to what it called a “higher demand for near real-time surveillance”, Thales Alenia Space announced that it was launching the ALL-IN-ONE, a customisable radar and optical satellite package which can provide up-to-date imagery for defence, intelligence and environmental monitoring purposes.

In October 2025 Thales said that it would be launching another space technology company with Leonardo and Airbus, to be launched in 2027. The new project, understood to be in part driven by a desire to reduce reliance on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, would supply satellites to support telecommunications, navigation, scientific research and “national security” needs.

Other Thales joint ventures centre on its defence work. These include its new partnership with Ukraine’s state-owned arms manufacturer UkrOboronProm to work on a variety of military products; a missile defence company, Eurosam, operated in partnership with weapons manufacturer, MBDA; and, until recently ThalesRaytheonSystems, with US arms giant RTX. ThalesRaytheonSystems has supplied NATO with command and control technology for over twenty years, but in July 2025 it was announced that it would be fully acquired by Thales.

Thales enjoys a close relationship with French aerospace firm, and one of its biggest investors, Dassault Aviation. Together, they produce the Rafale fighter jet, which has been sold to European states as well as to the governments of Egypt, India, Qatar, Indonesia and the UAE.

According to an EU Funding database, Thales has received EU funding to participate in over 150 research projects since 2014. It has been one of the biggest recipients of funding from the European Defence Fund (EDF) over the past few years, engaging in over 60 projects. It is currently coordinating several major EDF initiatives worth tens of millions of Euros.

In September 2025, the European Investment Bank agreed to lend Thales €450m to work on aeronautics and radar technologies, in what has been described as one of the biggest loans yet made by the bank to the private defence sector.

Other critical issues

There is some evidence that Thales products have been used to carry out attacks on civilians and suppress dissent in a number of distinct contexts. To cite a few examples, research indicates that FZ68 rockets produced by a Thales’ Belgian subsidiary, FZ, have been used by the Indonesian military to attack civilian villages of the Ngalum Kupel people in West Papua. In 2021, the company was criticised for apparently supplying radar technology to Myanmar’s junta after the coup – either via its Indian business partner BEL, or a joint venture BTSL. And in March 2025, documents indicate Thales had supplied transponders and collision-avoidance radars to drones produced by Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems, which have been used by Israeli forces to commit atrocities in Gaza.

In 2018, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) accused the company of selling surveillance technologies to Egypt’s authoritarian regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Besides Rafale fighter jets (for which Thales supplies key components), Thales Alenia Space has supplied Egypt with several communications satellites: Nilesat-301, and Tiba-1 (built in collaboration with Airbus). The latter will provide broadband services to Egypt as well as secure military communications channels.

In 2024, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office and its French counterpart, the Parquet National Financier, launched a joint investigation into the company over concerns about possible corruption and bribery. This was triggered by reports filed by a whistleblower – who was fired from the company – regarding significant, uncategorised payments connected to arms deals with Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Anti-corruption investigations into the firm are also underway in relation to its operations in India and Brazil.

People & politics

According to the NGO LobbyFacts, Thales spent up to €800,000 on lobbying the EU in 2024, and company personnel held over 30 meetings with European Commission staff the following year. Meanwhile, Thales’ US subsidiaries spend around $550,000 per year lobbying US Congress and Federal Agencies.

However, to understand Thales’ lobbying one cannot simply look at these figures. In 2021, reports by another (subsequently sacked) company whistleblower came to light of a Thales spy working at the UN, apparently with the full cooperation of the French state. Documents released through legal disclosure reportedly show that the agent was designated to a department under whose purview arms deals for UN peacekeeping forces were brokered. According to the reporting, from 2016 to 2018 the agent relayed information back to Thales’ management on a weekly basis, worked to secure deals, and influenced decisions in Thales’ favour. The department reportedly awarded contracts worth tens of millions of euros to the ultimate benefit of the company. It also emerged that the agent was not the first Thales spy found to be working at the UN.

Thales is headed by Chairman and CEO, Patrice Caine. Caine joined the company as a strategist in 2002, before which he had acted as an energy advisor to the cabinet office of France’s Minister for the economy, finance and industry. Caine also sits on the board of naval technology company, Naval Group. Other prominent members of Thales’ board are Bernard Fontana, Chairman and CEO of French energy firm EDF, and Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, former CEO of British outsourcing giant, Mitie.

Who’s behind the brand?

The French government exercises over a third of Thales’ voting rights. With more than a quarter of the company’s shares, private French aerospace firm, Dassault Aviation is the next largest investor. Dassault is controlled by the billionaire Dassault family.

Appendix: additional examples of DU technology

• Thales claims to be an expert in the field of miniature surveillance drones, running several lines including the Spy’Ranger series, which it says “fulfils all types of intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions” to meet military and security needs. Spy’Ranger has been sold to customers in the Middle East and deployed by French troops in Mali.
• Fulmar X is a drone designed for civil and military purposes which can be “configured to meet the needs of each customer”. It carries an infrared and electro-optical sensor suite and can be equipped with an AIS (Automatic Identification System) to identify vessels at sea. Fulmar has been reportedly used for surveillance missions by the Spanish military and supplied to the Malaysian coastguard for anti-smuggling, counter-piracy and border control missions.
• “Midway between a satellite and a drone”, Thales Alenia Space’s Stratobus is an autonomous, stratospheric airship supplying communications, navigation and earth observation services for military and civilian users.
• RSM NG/IFF (Identification “Friend or Foe”), is a radar system launched with the strapline “One radar. Both civil and military”. The system monitors civil and military air traffic simultaneously in shared or contested airspace using standards set by both NATO and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
• Thales describes the SEARCHMASTER as a “multi-role surveillance radar” aimed at detecting vessels, including submarines, and vehicles on land. Among the uses promoted by the company are anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, and homeland security missions. SEARCHMASTER reportedly is exempt from ITAR, the US government’s military export regulations.