CCTV Rules in Saudi Arabia: What We Found When We Looked Into It

We get asked often enough that we finally sat down and read through the actual regulation, rather than repeating whatever's floating around online. Here's what we found, where we found it, and — just as importantly — what we're not fully certain about.

There's an actual law, and it's not new

Saudi Arabia's surveillance camera rules come from a specific regulation: Royal Decree No. 164 (dated 1 Rabi' I 1444H), issued in October 2022, with a six-month grace period before it took full effect in April 2023. It's a standalone law about camera systems, separate from the broader Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) — though the two overlap once footage counts as personal data, which it generally does.

Who it actually applies to

The obligation covers a long list of entity types: government buildings, hotels, banks, commercial complexes, shopping centers, mosques, hospitals, and residential buildings — meaning shared spaces in apartment blocks, not someone's private living room. If you're a homeowner installing cameras purely for your own villa, you're outside the scope of this particular law (individual private residences are exempt).

The parts that are clear

A few requirements come up consistently across the sources we checked:

• Signage is mandatory. If you have cameras, visitors need to be able to tell.
• Equipment has to be Ministry of Interior-approved. You can't just install any camera system — manufacturing, importing, selling, or operating unapproved equipment is itself a violation.
• Certain areas are off-limits regardless of context — restrooms, changing rooms, medical examination rooms, and hotel guest rooms. This isn't a judgment call; it's explicit in the regulation.
• Penalties are tiered and specific: SAR 500 per camera for non-compliant technical specs, SAR 1,000 per camera for improper installation, up to SAR 5,000 for failing to retain footage when required, SAR 10,000 for installing in a prohibited area, and up to SAR 20,000 for unauthorized transfer or destruction of recordings.

The part we're genuinely unsure about

You'll see "footage must be kept for 90 days" repeated across a lot of installer websites (including competitors' — we're not going to pretend we didn't notice). We couldn't confirm that number from a source we'd trust enough to put our name behind. What the more careful sources actually say is that retention periods are set through separate regulatory term sheets, not fixed as a flat number inside the law itself. That might mean 90 days is right for some categories of entity and wrong for others, or that it's changed since whatever the original source was written. We'd rather say "we don't know for certain" than repeat a number we can't trace back to something official.

What this actually changes about how we install

The parts of the regulation that are clear are the parts we build into every job regardless of what type of client it is. Camera placement gets planned around the prohibited areas from the start, not adjusted afterward — restrooms, changing rooms, and similar spaces are simply excluded from coverage during the site walkthrough. Signage is part of the installation, not an optional extra someone has to remember to order separately. And when a client asks us to source equipment, we work with Ministry of Interior-approved systems rather than whatever's cheapest, because non-compliant hardware is a documented fine, not a hypothetical risk. None of that requires guessing at the parts of the regulation that are genuinely unsettled — the clear requirements are enough to plan an installation around.

The honest disclaimer

This is what we learned from reading publicly available sources as of August 2026 — Saudipedia's summary of the law and a Saudi law firm's client note on it, both linked below. It is not legal advice, and we're not presenting it as the final word on current requirements. Regulations like this get refined over time (PDPL's own implementing rules are still going through public consultation as we write this), and we'd genuinely rather you double-check anything compliance-critical with the Ministry of Interior or a lawyer than rely on a blog post — ours or anyone else's.

If you're planning a CCTV installation and want us to check the current state of requirements as they apply to your specific property type before we start, request a quote and ask — we'll look into it at the time rather than pointing you back to this post.

Sources: Saudipedia — Law of the Use of Security Surveillance Cameras in Saudi Arabia; Ghazzawi Law Firm — Understanding Saudi CCTV & Surveillance Camera Legal Framework. Retrieved August 2026.