The Bondi massacre has raised new concerns about providing adequate security surveillance of public events and the early detection of weapons in public spaces - but these are areas where significant technological advances were made in 2025.

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Despite opportunistic political grandstanding about putting soldiers on the streets and limiting public demonstrations in NSW, smart surveillance technology already allows effective security monitoring without the need for such extreme measures.

Surveillance technology advanced significantly in 2025, driven by rapid improvements in artificial intelligence (AI), sensor integration, and computing power. What distinguishes 2025 is not simply better cameras or more data, but the growing ability of surveillance systems to interpret and act in real time.

Capabilities such as automated weapon detection and anomaly recognition now deliver operational insights that were previously unavailable. These developments have expanded the role of surveillance in security, governance, and commerce, while intensifying debate about privacy, accountability, and regulation.

AI now sits at the core of most modern surveillance systems. In 2025, AI-powered video analytics moved firmly into the mainstream, supporting real-time threat detection and behavioural analysis. Surveillance systems no longer operate as passive recording tools; instead, they analyse video streams as they are captured, identifying people, vehicles, objects, and unusual activity.

A key technical shift has been the rise of edge computing. Rather than transmitting raw video to central servers, many cameras now........

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