- Regulation
- Counter-UAS
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May I jam, shoot down or take over a drone?
Counter-drone kit is widely sold, but who may use it here? What jamming does to your own systems, and what is permitted instead.
Published on · 7 min read
Search for counter-drone equipment and within a minute you will find a rifle-shaped device that supposedly takes a drone out of the sky. They are for sale, they look convincing, and for almost every Dutch organisation they are unusable. Here is why.
Jamming means disrupting a radio band
A jammer transmits at high power on the same frequencies as the drone so that the control link or GPS becomes unusable. It is not a precision instrument. Everything within range on 2.4 or 5 GHz goes with it, and at an event site that is a long list: the WiFi for the tills, the payment terminals, wireless microphones and sometimes your own security team’s comms.
On top of that, disrupting the radio spectrum is tightly regulated in the Netherlands. Equipment designed to make other communication impossible is not something you may simply own or use. That it can be bought abroad changes nothing.
Bringing one down means creating a falling object
A drone that loses its signal does not always do what you hope. Some land, some return automatically to their launch point, and some fall. Above a crowd that last outcome is a real risk that you created yourself. The aircraft you wanted to make harmless has become more dangerous than it was.
So who may intervene?
In the Netherlands that authority sits with the police and a limited number of designated services, in specific situations and with equipment and procedures approved for it. An event organiser, a security company or a site manager is not among them. See also our explanation of the regulation.
What you can do: know rather than intervene
Most drone incidents at events and business sites are not attacks. They are people who want good footage and do not know it is not allowed. You do not solve that with equipment that disables the aircraft, you solve it with a conversation. And for a conversation you need to know where the pilot is standing.
That is the difference between detection and counter-UAS. Detection is passive: it listens to the identification signal the drone broadcasts itself and puts the aircraft and the pilot on the map. Nothing is transmitted and nothing is disrupted, so you need no exemption and you take nothing else down with it. Read how the AEROTECT DRID works and which standards it builds on.
| Jamming or takeover | Passive detection | |
|---|---|---|
| Transmits | Yes, at high power | No |
| Disrupts other equipment | Yes, everything on the band | No |
| Who may use it | Police and designated services | Anyone |
| Produces evidence | No | Yes, with time and position |
| Risk to the crowd | A falling aircraft | None |
The practical route
- Record that drones are not welcome, in the permit or the site rules.
- Make sure you can see what is flying and where the pilot is.
- Approach the pilot, or have the police do it with the position in hand.
- Keep the observations for the debrief and next year’s permit.
That is less spectacular than a device that plucks drones out of the air, and it is the route that works in practice. At four major events in 2026, approaching the pilot was enough every time. See the cases.