Iran built a vast camera network to control dissent. Israel used it to track targets, AP sources say

Israel hijacked Iran's vast street camera network to track military and political targets, according to AP sources, a capability that played a role in operations including the killing of Iran's supreme leader. Iran had built the surveillance system primarily to monitor and suppress domestic dissent, creating an infrastructure that adversaries could exploit during conflict. The incident demonstrates how surveillance systems designed for internal control have become military vulnerabilities in wartime, with hostile nations now treating civilian monitoring networks as legitimate intelligence assets. The hijacking represents a significant breach of Iran's security infrastructure and raises questions about how other authoritarian regimes' domestic surveillance systems might be exploited by foreign powers. The development underscores the dual-use risks of mass surveillance technology when deployed without protection against sophisticated adversaries.