The World The use of street cameras in war
Apr 1, 2026
Orla Barry, a Europe correspondent reporting on Vienna’s gender planning tensions. Bill Farron-Price, an energy research fellow on Asia’s vulnerability to oil and gas shocks. Shirin Jafari, a journalist who uncovered how street cameras and CCTV are repurposed for wartime intelligence. They explore hacked feeds in Iran, global trends of CCTV use and AI in conflicts, and cascading energy and policy impacts in Asia.
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Street Cameras Became Strategic Intelligence Tools
- Street CCTV and traffic cameras have become force-multipliers for intelligence operations in conflicts like the Iran strike on Ayatollah Khamenei.
- Experts including Shirin Jafari and Hamid Kashfi say thousands of feeds in Tehran were tapped to map bodyguard movements, timings, and security routines used to shape the assassination plan.
Centralized Camera Networks Create Vulnerabilities
- Centralized camera systems installed to monitor protests create single points of failure that adversaries can exploit.
- Hamid Kashfi and Sergei Shukhovich explain Iran's rapid CCTV buildout and mismanagement made large-scale breaches and external surveillance relatively easy.
Audit And Segment CCTV Systems To Reduce Risk
- Governments should audit and segment CCTV infrastructures to reduce single-point compromises.
- Hamid Kashfi warns mismanagement and outdated practices turn monitoring systems into a "ticking bomb," so patching, segmentation, and insider risk mitigation are critical.