Surveillance Without Oversight:

This report looks into the proliferation of surveillance cameras across the West Bank and how, amid a legal vacuum, they are posing a threat to people’s privacy. We show how the lack of regulatory legislation has led to social conflict, psychological pressure, economic losses, and fears that this technology could be used by the security services or for digital blackmail. Although the authorities have acknowledged that a draft law has been around since 2021, it remains shrouded in secrecy, while rights groups fear this law itself could come at the expense of people’s liberties.

Fathia Rashid (not her real name) from the Ain Munjed district of Ramallah battled for two years to assert her right to privacy, after her neighbours decided to install a surveillance camera pointing directly - and “deliberately,” she says - at the entrance to her house and garden.

Sixty-seven-year-old Fathia lives on the ground floor. Ultimately, she turned to the Palestinian law courts to secure her right to privacy, after trying in vain to resolve the issue amicably by convincing the people on the first floor of the building across to remove their camera or at least redirect it. When persuasion failed she tried hanging large covers over her front door in the hope of blocking their view. But the neighbours just moved the camera higher, so that it was looking straight at her door. “They were doing it intentionally, it was no accident,” says Fathia.

“Imagine your whole life getting recorded,” she continues. “The time you go out, the time you get back. Even if I just wanted to go out in the garden, I’d have to get dressed and put on a veil, as if I was going outside the house. I couldn’t go out on the balcony or move around freely.”

Fathia Rashid had to put up with this for two years, until a specialist engineer was sent round to do an inspection. Based on his report that the camera was indeed pointing directly at Fathia’s front door, the court issued an order to remove it and pay Fathia financial compensation for damages and for what she paid for the covers.

However, even the court's decision was not carried out voluntarily. “The neighbours ignored the ruling, so in the end, the police had to come and take away the cameras themselves.”

Fathia says her experience shows there is a legal vacuum. For her it was more than just a neighbourhood dispute; it was a violation of her fundamental right to privacy. “I was hoping they’d make a decisive ruling on this, because it’s not just about people using these cameras for their own ends; the enemy [Israel] too can make use of them.”

Although the court ruled in her favour, Fathia believes that court rulings do not go far enough. She points out that it is unreasonable for every single person to have to use the law and to be caught up in court processes for years just to secure their right to privacy. She believes that there should be a law that clearly prohibits the installation of cameras that breach people's privacy. People’s homes, she says, should be protected space.

The Palestinian Supreme Court's ruling in the case brought by Fathia
Rashid regarding surveillance cameras pointing at her home.

Cameras Everywhere... But the Law is Nowhere to be Seen

Surveillance cameras have spread across the West Bank in recent years, thanks to the availability of cheap cameras on the market. With some costing no more than $50, these cameras have mushroomed - on the streets, in workplaces, and even at homes. It is no longer just a question of security and protection from robbery and other crimes. These cameras have gone up randomly in lots of homes in cities, villages, and refugee camps without taking into account the privacy of those living in the area. Nor is there any consideration of risk that someone could use what is recorded for other purposes, given that there is no legal framework to ensure these cameras are used in a way that respects people’s privacy.

In 2021, the Palestinian government in the West Bank referred a draft law regulating the use of surveillance cameras to President Mahmoud Abbas, without anyone being informed or consulted, according to human rights activists. The draft remains undisclosed. This report highlights the danger these cameras pose to individual privacy, and the slowness of the Palestinian government in regulating this area.

A special study surveilled 130 130 people

It Takes Just a Trigger

“Just a spark is all it takes,” as the Palestinian proverb goes. And in this case it could be the absence of law which provides the spark, which spurs people to try to take back their rights themselves. Some say this is what was behind the fire at the Royal Factory in Hebron.

On the evening of February 27, 2024, a fire broke out at a factory specialising in the production of plastic materials and sanitary ware. It took civil defence forces three days to put the fire out completely.

Two days before the fire, a man living by the factory noticed that one of its surveillance cameras was pointing towards his house. He contacted the owners of the plant and asked them to move the camera to the opposite corner of the building. He says they ignored his request and denied the camera was filming his family home. He admitted breaking the camera. This happened on the same day the fire broke out.

The morning after the neighbour – Mr A Bakri – had contacted the factory owners, the direction of the surveillance camera on the Royal Factory had not changed. So at 11:00 am he broke the camera and then went back home, as can be seen on the recording taken by the camera itself.

Al-Bakri denies, however, that his family had anything to do with the massive fire at the factory, which the owners accuse the Al-Bakri family of starting. The case is now pending in the Palestinian courts.

Mazen Zaghir, one of the owners of the Royal Factory and vice chairman of the board of directors, called Al-Bakri's account of the camera incident a “malicious” complaint and denied that the factory's surveillance camera had violated anyone's privacy.

The Royal Factory, which covers approximately 88,000 square metres and employs nearly 700 workers, is sited in a residential area and there is no law to regulate the installation and use of surveillance cameras. These two factors have exacerbated the dispute between Al-Bakri and the factory.

Additionally, the fire caused significant economic losses to all those involved with the factory, first and foremost the people who worked there to support their families. In early October 2025, the factory was paid an estimated $8 million in compensation by the insurance company.

Workplaces Filmed in Audiovisual

When respondents were asked whether there were surveillance cameras in their workplace:

Hiba G. told us how surveillance cameras made her feel less free at work. “I used to work in a clothing store in Kafr Aqab (near Jerusalem),” she said. “It’s two floors and in every corner of the store there are cameras. There was no place for female employees to pray, eat, or take a break.”

Hiba was later forced to quit her job, losing her source of income, because the cameras made her feel uncomfortable.

G.J., who used to work at a company in northwest Ramallah, says her manager would reprimand her for having private conversations with her colleagues, when there was no one else present and only the surveillance cameras. This convinced her that the cameras were recording not only images but sound as well.

“At first, the cameras recorded only video, but after seven months they installed new ones,” she adds. “There was no privacy at all, and that makes you uncomfortable and less keen on working, it affects how you feel about work.”

Legal Vacuum

Surveillance of the workplace happens in a legal vacuum that the Palestinian Labor Law of 2000 fails to address. This is because “cameras were not then as common as they are today,” according to Jihad Shrouf, Head of the legal unit in the Ministry of Labour.

Shrouf says that these issues were supposed to have been dealt with in a draft law on surveillance cameras submitted to the president by the previous government, but not yet approved.

Positive Aspects that Cannot be Ignored

Surveillance cameras have often helped safeguard people’s rights, especially in cases of altercations or robberies. And this underlines the importance of having a law that deals with the surveillance canmeras, so that they are installed in such a way that individual privacy is not abused or compromised.

Surveillance Cameras and Evidence of \Privacy Violations

With no legislation in place, companies that sell and install surveillance cameras use images of private homes or public buildings taken by cameras for their social medi marketing. This might constitute a violation of privacy, if the owners of those cameras have not given their consent.

Images from different locations in the West Bank published by a company to advertize the quality of its cameras

We showed these images to Ammar Jamos, a legal researcher at the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR). He said that "not having a law to control the installation of surveillance cameras and how recordings are used doesn’t mean that anything goes, and that it’s possible to abuse the rights of others and the sanctity of people’s privacy. This is a crime under to Article 32 of the Palestinian Basic Law and Article 22 of Palestinian Law by Decree No. 10 of 2018 on Cybercrime and its amendments. This bans arbitrary interference in the private lives of others."

Widespread Surveillance Is a Violation of Privacy

When asked whether they thought the proliferation of surveillance cameras in public and private places in the West Bank was a restriction on people’s freedom, 37 respondents in our survey answered “yes,” and 45 said “somewhat,” while 47 thought cameras had no effect on public freedom. At the same time, 72 percent of the survey sample thought that surveillance cameras in the West Bank were being used for purposes other than safeguarding the public.

On the other hand, 65 percent thought that a law to regulate the installation and use of surveillance cameras in the West Bank would make them less of a risk to privacy, while 18 percent thought such a law would not help. Another 17 percent were unsure if a law would make cameras and recordings less of an intrusion into people's private lives.

Commenting on the current legal vacuum, despite the uncontrolled spread of these cameras, Mohammed Abu al-Rub, director of the Government Communication Center said, “There are a number of priority laws being worked on by a specialized legal committee, but the surveillance camera bill is not one of them yet.”

Concerns

Jamous believes the draft law on surveillance cameras—crafted behind closed doors and not shared with the ICHR, which represents society at large—is likely part of an ongoing policy to curb public freedoms. He noted that a similar approach was taken with the cybercrime law, which triggered significant public backlash after it was passed.

For this reason, Jamos is concerned that the “draft law” might have been written in such a way as to give the authorities more power to restrict freedom by allowing them to control surveillance cameras and what they record.

Subject to Confiscation

These concerns over violation of privacy are not limited to cameras in homes, streets, and workplaces, but include those installed in shops, particularly in city centers. This is because recordings are liable to be monitored by Palestinian security agencies or to be taken by the Israeli army.

Over the years, the Israeli army has used shop surveillance cameras to track and arrest individuals accused of carrying out attacks against Israeli targets. In such cases, footage from cameras along entire streets is reviewed, and in many instances these recordings have played a key role in the arrest of Palestinians.

In our survey, 46 percent of respondents thought cameras in the West Bank were generally of poor quality and easy to hack into, while 54 percent said they were of average quality and hackers would need special expertise.

Digital security expert Raya Sharbain says that home and store cameras (known as CCTV) usually operate on a “username and password” system. And because the person buying one of these cameras usually sets their password once and usually does not change it again, or only after a long time, they are easy to hack.

Additionally, Raya explains that there are websites for hacking into surveillance cameras and stealing recordings for amusement. And these could make owners prone to blackmail and threats, since it is so easy to hack into these cameras and violate the owner’s privacy.

Mahmoud Al-Hayh is a technical support and maintenance engineer at the Hikvision Camera Company. He says there is no need for a hacker to be especially talented or intelligent to break into camera systems. A first-year university student could hack your system if he knew the basics.