At Super Bowl 50, fan safety starts with super-snoopy tech - CNET

Many countries have responded with extreme measures at similar high-profile sporting events. In 2012, the British govement put missile launchers on the roofs of buildings around the London Olympics. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil brought in 150,000 security staff as well as anti-aircraft tanks and surveillance drones.

Zipping up Levi's Stadium

Not surprisingly, the FBI declined to offer details of what's planned. Even so, we do know security measures will include hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes officers scouring Levi's Stadium and Super Bowl-related events. Helicopters will hover on game day and military fighter jets will be on standby. The stadium's 600 security cameras will closely watch pretty much everything happening in the arena, while the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting flights around the stadium on game day and creating a "no drone zone" near the stadium.

Robots will also be used at the game and at events in San Francisco, ready to detect and disarm anything ranging from a backpack bomb to a weapon of mass destruction.

Inside the Super Bowl tech at Levi's Stadium...

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Away from the game, law enforcement agencies are analyzing data from phone tips, traffic reports, security cameras, officer patrols and social media for possible terrorist or major criminal activities across the Bay Area.

The agencies are working with a Virginia-based threat intelligence startup called Haystax Technology, which helped protect the previous six Super Bowls. This year's game is more "logistically challenging" than previous Super Bowls, though, since events are happening across the Bay area, which includes San Francisco, Silicon Valley and East Bay cities including Oakland and Berkeley.

That's where Haystax's software called Cal COP, or Califoia Common Operating Picture for Threat Awareness, comes in. The software helps interpret data pouring into the operations center by aggregating information, including officer and traffic reports.

The coordinated data is displayed on a "Watchboard," a giant digital map on display inside both the joint operations center and a backup office in Virginia. The software is now processing more than 200 alerts every minute, and about 300,000 day, said Bryan Ware, Haystax's chief technology officer. Those numbers are expected to increase in the buildup to Sunday's game.

Planning for Super Bowl 50's safety began more than two years ago, after Levi's Stadium won the bid to host the big game. After hundreds of meetings, the operation officially started about an hour after last year's game ended. A small contingency of FBI personnel from San Francisco went to Arizona to review how security was handled at that Super Bowl.

One incident they reviewed was a threat on social media, and flagged by Haystax software, in which a man said he would "shoot the place up." Within an hour, law enforcement officers tracked the man down at a halfway house in another state. "Essentially, the person was lonely and wanted someone to talk to him," Lightfoot said.