Following reports that Tehran traffic cameras were hacked by Israel to track top Iranian officials’ movement, the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology on Wednesday raised serious questions about the cybersecurity of Islamabad’s Safe City surveillance system, warning that any breach could pose risks to sensitive government operations.
The issue was discussed during a committee meeting chaired by Senator Palwasha Khan at Parliament House, where lawmakers reviewed the safety of surveillance infrastructure following reports that traffic cameras in Tehran had recently been compromised by hackers.
Several senators sought clarity on the software used in the Safe City project, questioning whether it had links to Israeli technology firms and whether such associations could create potential vulnerabilities in systems used to monitor high-level government movements.
PML-N Senator Afnan Ullah said that many widely used global software solutions originate from Israeli companies, which, he argued, could become a security risk in sensitive environments. He suggested that for VVIP movements, authorities might consider relying more on physical, hardware-based monitoring systems rather than purely software-driven surveillance.
JUI-P Senator Talha Mahmood also recalled that during his earlier tenure as chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, an inquiry into the project had indicated that a company involved in the system operated from Turkey but had links tracing back to Israel.
Officials representing the Safe City project dismissed the concerns and assured the committee that robust safeguards were in place.
Committee members were further informed that the BriefCam software used in the system was introduced in 2021 and is currently owned by a Japanese company.
