Iran Rapidly Expands Surveillance Camera Network Across Cities

iranwire – The cameras appeared gradually at first. A few new lenses on bridges. Some updated systems on street corners. 

But over the past year, the proliferation of surveillance equipment across Iranian cities has accelerated at an unprecedented pace, transforming urban landscapes into an open-air monitoring system.

From Tehran’s streets to trains across the country, from government offices to private businesses, the Islamic Republic is building one of the world’s most comprehensive surveillance networks.

The effort, branded as “smartization” by the country’s law enforcement command, now extends far beyond typical urban security measures.

Cameras monitor bridges, buildings, streets, and subways. Police body cameras record encounters with citizens. Drones observe crowds from above. And soon, classrooms may join the list of surveilled spaces as education officials reconsider decade-old exemptions.

But the most significant shift isn’t the number of cameras – it’s who controls them and how they’re connected.

In a move that has raised concerns among privacy advocates, the government has outsourced parts of its surveillance operations to private companies.

Officials frame the decision as cost-saving, but the practical outcome has been an expansion of monitoring capabilities beyond traditional judicial and military oversight.

The arrangement allows multiple agencies to access surveillance feeds simultaneously, creating overlapping layers of monitoring.

And with private-sector motivation driving installation rates, the camera network is growing faster than any government-only program could.

The transformation fits into the police’s broader “smartization” initiative, which shifts major portions of security operations into the digital realm.

From integrating urban cameras with facial recognition systems to connecting residential buildings to centralized monitoring networks, the program represents a fundamental reimagining of how the state maintains control.

For many Iranians, the turning point came during the 12-day war in June, when Basij forces entered homes and businesses claiming to “inspect private cameras.”

Reports emerged of forces searching mobile phones on the streets and taking hard drives and recorded footage without clear legal authorization.

The experience crystallized fears that the surveillance infrastructure, whatever its purpose, could be wielded as a tool of social control, experts say.

The capital has become the primary laboratory for surveillance expansion, but not under police or security services, as might be expected. Instead, Tehran Municipality has taken the lead.

In November, Khodadad Kashefi, CEO of the municipality’s Shahrban and Harimban Company, announced that surveillance coverage would expand noticeably across the city.

The video monitoring network, he said, had entered a new phase.

The groundwork was laid months earlier. In April, Mehdi Chamran, head of the Tehran City Council, revealed that many street cameras previously offline due to technical problems had been reactivated.

More significantly, he disclosed that foreign cameras were being purchased to complete the network.

Those foreign cameras come primarily from China, through contracts that have sparked controversy within the municipality.

Mayor Alireza Zakani has pursued agreements with Chinese contractors worth hundreds of millions of dollars, moves that became public only after two council members protested.

Documents show the municipality seeking to purchase €400 million worth of cameras and smart equipment from Tianjin Tiandi, a company sanctioned by the U.S. for selling suppression technology and cooperating with both the Revolutionary Guards and Chinese police in the repression of Uyghurs.

The municipality has provided no technical documents, economic justification, or security rationale for the purchases. Instead, it seeks only approval and silence from the council.

The pattern extends beyond a single problematic contract. Tehran has purchased buses, taxis, and electric motorcycles from little-known Chinese firms. It has outsourced traffic-control equipment to companies on U.S. and European blacklists.

What makes the reliance on Chinese suppliers notable is that Iranian companies now exist that could provide similar services.

Firms like Shahab, Hoosh Kavan, and Parstak work in facial recognition technology, largely using Chinese systems but capable of offering domestic alternatives.

The network is spreading into virtually every corner of Iranian life.

In April 2024, parliament member Amirhossein Bankipour announced that under the proposed Hijab and Chastity bill, cameras in all government offices, private companies, and stores would connect directly to police centers for “identifying women opposed to mandatory hijab requirements.”

That same month, Hamid Gogochani, director general of safety and railway network supervision, revealed that camera installation on passenger trains began the previous year, was expanding to freight trains.

Within months, he said, all passenger and freight trains would carry two types of cameras – one monitoring the cabin interior to assist operational officers, and another watching infrastructure and tracks outside.

The education sector represents another frontier.

For a decade, classrooms had no cameras, even as they were installed throughout courtyards and corridors.

Mohammad Salimi, director general of performance evaluation at the Ministry of Education, said the exemption existed because classrooms are teachers’ work domains and cameras could limit their freedom of action.

But that exemption is ending. In November, Mousa Kafash, deputy secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Education, announced that individual school councils would now decide whether to install classroom cameras.

Police themselves are becoming mobile surveillance units. Officials announced in 2018 that 40,000 police uniforms had been equipped with cameras. Last year, nearly 50,000 more cameras were distributed to officers.

By October, Tehran’s police said all operational officers now carry body cameras, activated during national and religious ceremonies or emergency and wartime conditions.

The feeds allow commanders to assess situations and deploy forces in real time. Plans call for expanding the program to most field police forces.

All these scattered cameras – on streets, in stores, on trains, on police uniforms – are meant to connect. That integration effort is well underway.

The starting point is the Septam system, which targets cameras in shops, restaurants, and service businesses.

To receive business licenses, establishments must install cameras that meet police standards and obtain approval for them.

Septam experts visit locations to register technical specifications, giving police access to recorded images.

The result transforms independent business cameras into nodes in a unified network – the first link in a chain designed to aggregate visual data across the country.

The technical architecture supporting this integration has been years in the making.

The “smartization” headquarters, established in 2021, laid the initial groundwork. In April, police published a new document outlining plans for a multi-layered surveillance system.

Officially, police describe the goal as “facilitating services.” But the scope suggests something more ambitious: connecting urban cameras, expanding facial recognition, enabling widespread license plate reading, developing mobile monitoring systems, and exchanging billions of data points with dozens of government and private institutions.

This infrastructure has transformed the police from a primarily field force into an organization deriving power from accumulated, analyzable data.

Police have even developed software called Nazer for public visual reporting, essentially crowdsourcing surveillance.

As police commanders recently put it, “Today’s security is not possible with past methods.”

Not all officials embrace expanding surveillance. Earlier this year, traffic police denied reports about using facial recognition cameras to identify and record pedestrian violations.

Teymour Hosseini, head of traffic police, insisted no such plans existed and said the published reports were incorrect.

Yet evidence suggests the overall policy direction continues moving toward individual-focused monitoring.

The U.S. International Fact-Finding Mission published a report saying that military forces use surveillance drones to monitor women’s hijabs in public places.

The same camera networks, the report found, identify women in vehicles without hijab.

Perhaps the most far-reaching change comes not through new installations but through building codes.

The Ministry of Roads and Urban Development confirmed that new protective and disciplinary regulations became mandatory in May, prepared under Article 108 of the Sixth Development Plan in cooperation with the police.

The regulations make surveillance equipment part of national building standards.

They apply to towns, residential complexes, and office or commercial buildings with four or more units.

Non-compliance creates obstacles in obtaining permits and completion certificates.

The requirements mandate cameras at entrances, parking lots, corridors, and common spaces.

They specify long-term image storage, the use of facial and license plate recognition technology, and the possibility of connection to the police’s warning system.

Equipment purchases and installation must go through police-approved companies.

Completion certificates depend on implementing the standards – placing supply chains, installation methods, and data-access paths in the hands of security institutions.

The Islamic Republic frames its surveillance expansion as modernization, increased accuracy, and public service.

But for many Iranians, the cameras represent something else entirely: an infrastructure of control, expanding daily, increasingly inescapable, turning cities into places where being unwatched becomes impossible.