Canadian police just got a new way to protect sensitive drone data

Canadian police and defense agencies have a new option for running one of their key situational-awareness tools without sending sensitive operational data to a foreign cloud provider.

ThinkOn, a Canadian-owned sovereign cloud provider, and drone technology company AVSS have integrated Team Awareness Kit (TAK) with infrastructure hosted entirely in Canada. The goal is straightforward: give agencies the same TAK experience while keeping their data under Canadian ownership and jurisdiction.

The integration allows telemetry and video from MAVLink-compatible drones to flow directly into TAK’s common operating picture and onto TAK-enabled devices, including Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK). For teams in the field, the workflow doesn’t really change. The major difference is happening behind the scenes — the TAK server runs on ThinkOn’s Canadian cloud platform rather than a foreign hyperscaler.

That could be particularly important for police and defense organizations handling sensitive location information, live video, and operational data.

TAK deployments commonly use hyperscale cloud infrastructure because those platforms are readily available and often serve as the starting point for TAK implementations. But that can leave agencies responsible for building the surrounding infrastructure while their data resides outside their home jurisdiction. ThinkOn and AVSS say their integration is designed to close that gap.

For agencies already running TAK on a hyperscaler, the setup provides a path to migrate to Canadian infrastructure without requiring field personnel to learn a new system or change their everyday workflows. Agencies deploying TAK for the first time can also start with a sovereign setup instead of having to move away from a foreign cloud later.

For AVSS, the drone side of the equation is especially important. Getting aerial video and telemetry to the people coordinating an emergency response is only useful if that information reaches them quickly and lands somewhere the agency is comfortable storing it.

The partnership brings together two Canadian companies to offer a homegrown TAK option for public safety and defense organizations, with the companies emphasizing Canadian control over both the infrastructure and the data.

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