Filming Inside Hospitals, Courts and Government Buildings in Kuwait: When Is It Banned and What Is the Liability?

A visitor walks into a government hospital, a courthouse or a ministry with a camera-equipped phone in hand. The queue is long, the staff seem indifferent, or an argument breaks out, and the temptation is simple: record it and post it. At the door, a security guard says photography is not allowed, and within seconds a legitimate grievance can turn into a confiscated phone, a complaint to the police or a summons. Many people do not know where their right to document events ends and where other people's right to privacy, and the institution's right to keep order, begins.

This article is limited to government, healthcare and judicial premises. It does not repeat the general rules on the right to one's image and on photographing people without consent, which we covered in our article on filming without permission in Kuwait. Instead it looks at the heightened privacy surrounding a patient in a treatment room, a public employee doing their job, a litigant in a courtroom, and official information that must not leak.

We explain why photography is restricted in these places and where the restriction comes from, what the position is on filming patients, staff and other visitors, where the media stands in relation to court sessions and court buildings, how criminal and civil liability arise from filming and posting, and what to do if you are filmed or stopped by security. Three hypothetical scenarios and a set of frequently asked questions close the article.

Quick Answer

Kuwaiti law has no single provision saying "photography is banned in every government building." Instead three layers combine: a general principle protecting private life and human dignity; the administrative authority of each institution to regulate entry and filming on its premises through internal rules, instructions and signage; and criminal provisions that punish misuse of camera phones and the publication of content that violates privacy or harms others through information technology means.

Three places are the most sensitive: patient rooms and clinics, because a patient's condition and image form part of their medical confidentiality; courtrooms, because order in the session is controlled by the presiding judge and nobody may photograph or record without that judge's permission; and security and sensitive sites, where the concern is public safety rather than privacy alone.

If you want to document a failure or a violation, the safer course is to photograph only what concerns you: your own papers, your queue number, a public notice, without showing other people's faces. Take your complaint to the competent authority rather than posting the clip. Do not publish the face of a patient, litigant or employee who has not agreed. It is usually publication, not the act of filming, that turns a person with a genuine grievance into someone accused of defamation or of violating privacy.

The Legislative Framework

The governing rules sit at several levels, and none of them should be read in isolation:

• The Penal Code (Law 16/1960): contains the general provisions on insult, defamation, disclosure of secrets, threats and harm to reputation. It applies when a published clip or photograph is the means of committing one of these offences, or when filming is accompanied by coercion or trespass.
• The Information Technology Crimes Law (Law 63/2015): the closest statute to our subject. It deals with misuse of technological devices and means, penalises capturing material that intrudes on private life without right, and penalises publishing content that harms others or amounts to defamation through technological means. This is why posting on social media is more dangerous than the filming itself.
• The Civil Code (Law 67/1980): the basis for compensation for harm to a person's reputation, feelings and privacy. Whoever commits a fault that causes harm to another must make it good, and moral damage is included.
• The Criminal Procedure Law (Law 17/1960): governs open sessions, the court's power to maintain order and remove disruptive persons, and how complaints are filed and prosecutions started.
• The Civil and Commercial Procedure Law (Law 38/1980): sets the principle of open civil hearings, subject to the court's power to hold them in private to protect public order, morals or family privacy, and gives the presiding judge authority to keep order.
• The Administrative Circuit Law (Law 20/1981): the route for someone harmed by an administrative decision, for example one that bars entry or refuses to process a request because of a dispute over filming.
• The Child Rights Law (21/2015) and the Juveniles Law (111/2015): add special protection for a child's image and identity in hospitals and courts.
• The law regulating the practice of medicine, medical ethics and the rules of medical confidentiality: places a duty of confidentiality on physicians and facility staff. It does not bind an ordinary visitor directly, but it explains why healthcare facilities enforce restrictions strictly.

The prohibition inside a building most often comes from an organisational decision or internal instructions of the institution, posted at entrances or communicated to security, rather than from a separate criminal text for each facility. That distinction matters. Breaching instructions may cost you removal from the building, a stop to your filming or an order to delete what you captured. A crime, by contrast, exists only if its elements are met, depending on what you filmed and how you published it.

Substantive Rules

First: why is filming restricted in government and healthcare places?

The reasons differ from one place to another and should not be lumped together:

• Protecting patient privacy and confidentiality: a hospital is where people are at their most vulnerable: in medical gowns, attached to machines, in pain, sometimes dying. A patient's image, name and condition are personal health information that nobody may expose.
• Protecting clinical work: filming in emergency rooms, operating theatres or intensive care distracts the team, disrupts care and puts patients at real risk.
• Protecting visitors' data: staff screens, transaction papers and sign-in logs contain other people's personal data. A visitor who films the queue may capture documents that are not theirs.
• Security: filming entrances, exits, guard posts, camera systems and the location of sensitive equipment may reveal weaknesses, which is why security and sovereign bodies are stricter still.
• The dignity of the judiciary and the order of the session: filming in a courtroom can influence witnesses and litigants and turn a hearing into a spectacle, undermining neutrality and the right to a calm trial.

As a result, the restriction is not uniform. Photographing a building's facade from the street is one thing, photographing a patient's room is another, and photographing a judge listening to a witness is a third. The closer the place is to medical secrecy, security or the administration of justice, the stricter the restriction and the heavier the liability.

Second: filming patients

The settled legal approach is that a patient's image and condition are among their secrets. They may be recorded or shared only with the patient's express consent, or the consent of a guardian if the patient is a minor or lacks capacity. It makes no difference that the person filming is a relative or friend; kinship does not remove the patient's right to privacy.

Recurring real-life patterns include a visitor filming a patient lying in a corridor to prove that the hospital is overcrowded, a relative photographing a deceased family member and sending the picture to a family group, or a bystander streaming an accident victim live. In each of these, an intrusion on private life can be established even where the person filming acted in good faith, because what counts is the effect on the person pictured and the filmer's knowledge that the person did not agree.

The risk grows where the person filmed is a child, a person with a mental or infectious condition, or a victim of assault. Then liability is not limited to privacy; it engages the special rules protecting children and prohibiting the exposure of victims. For a patient's right to see and obtain a copy of their file, see our article on a hospital refusing to hand over a medical file. That is the lawful way to obtain evidence of negligence, rather than random filming.

Third: filming doctors, nurses and employees

A public employee performing their duties is not stripped of protection; they keep their dignity and their person. However, the margin of acceptable criticism toward someone who performs a public function is wider than toward a private individual, provided the criticism is objective, related to the work, and is not insult or personal attack.

Filming an employee who refuses to accept your paperwork can be seen in two ways. If it is to prove a refusal or failure that you will later present to the supervisory body or a court, it has some basis in right, provided you keep to what is necessary and do not publish. If it is to mock or shame, broadcast with an abusive caption, liability follows and the court will weigh the circumstances.

What is best avoided is filming a doctor or nurse during a procedure itself. You are simultaneously recording the patient, the equipment and clinical records, and any clip that spreads puts its subject on trial in public opinion before the other side is heard and before a technical committee or medical expert has investigated. On how a technical committee's opinion differs from a court-appointed medical expert, see our article on medical expertise before Kuwaiti courts.

Fourth: filming other visitors

The person standing in the queue or waiting in the hall is not a party to your dispute and has not agreed to appear in your video. A visitor's face, and their data on a paper in their hand, is personal information, and their very presence may be confidential: someone attending a psychiatric clinic, a dermatology department, a family counselling centre or a personal-status case.

The practical rule: if you want to document overcrowding, film from an angle that does not show faces, blur faces before any posting, or simply photograph the information board, the queue clock and your own ticket. This achieves your purpose without taking on liability for filming others.

Fifth: government buildings and security sites

Photographing a government building from the outside, from a public place, is in principle permitted if it is not a security, military or sovereign site and nothing in the image endangers security. Once you enter the interior and film counters, staff, surveillance systems and department doors, you are subject to the institution's instructions. It may stop you, ask you to delete what you took, or remove you.

Sensitivity is greater still at border crossings, police stations, investigation departments, prisons and security or military sites, where filming may be treated as a threat to security rather than a mere administrative dispute, and the person filming is dealt with according to the facts, intent and information captured. There is no room for personal judgment in these places: do not film at all.

Sixth: courts and hearings

The rule for court sessions is openness: the public may attend unless the court decides to hold the hearing in private for reasons of public order, morals or family privacy, as in personal-status and family cases, certain offences against honour and juvenile cases. But an open hearing is not a licence to film it. Openness means people may witness the proceedings; photography, recording and broadcasting depend on the presiding judge's permission and on whatever the judge decides to preserve order and the dignity of the court.

It follows that taking out a phone in the courtroom and recording proceedings, or filming judges, parties and witnesses without permission, may lead to an order to leave, an order to delete the material, and liability for disrupting the session. It may extend to criminal liability if accompanied by insults to the court or publication that interferes with the course of justice. If the session is closed or concerns a minor, the matter is more serious still, because what happens in it may not be published at all.

By contrast, submitting a recording or clip to the court as evidence in your own case is a different question. It is governed by the law of evidence, the lawfulness of how the evidence was obtained and the judge's power to assess its weight, as we explained in our article on covert audio recording in Kuwait. A court may accept evidence you recorded to establish a right of your own, but it will not tolerate someone who records inside its courtroom without permission.

Seventh: the media and the limits of reporting on courts

The press and media have a legitimate role in reporting what happens in the justice system and informing the public, protected by the principle of open hearings. This reporting has limits: it must be truthful and fair, must not be excerpted in a misleading way, must not influence judges or witnesses, must not publish what the court has ordered to be confidential or what concerns minors, must not expose families' private affairs, and must not declare a defendant guilty before judgment.

It is important to distinguish reporting the news in objective terms after attending a hearing or reading a judgment from filming and broadcasting the courtroom, which needs specific permission. Anyone who comments on a case pending before the courts with insult, defamation or smears of one of the parties is not protected by a media capacity; they answer like anyone else under the Penal Code and the Information Technology Crimes Law where the publication was through a technological means.

Eighth: posting the clip online

The most dangerous step is not taking the phone out but pressing "publish". From that moment the harm widens and removal becomes difficult, and a dispute over entry becomes a defamation or privacy case that the institution, the employee, the patient or the family may bring against you.

Liability may also fall on someone who did not film: a person who forwards the clip to groups, adds an abusive comment, or attaches a name or description. We discussed these situations in our article on insults in WhatsApp groups. The principle is that sharing and commenting each carry their own legal consequences, and saying "I only passed it on" is no defence where the passing on contributed to the insult.

If your goal is to review the service of a private hospital, clinic or centre, there is a difference between an objective review of your own experience and posting clips of individuals while calling them negligent in wounding terms. We set out that dividing line in our article on negative online reviews.

Ninth: criminal liability

Several criminal characterisations are possible depending on the facts, and no single label attaches to every filming incident:

• Misuse of a camera phone: capturing images of others without permission in a setting that intrudes on their privacy, an offence under the Information Technology Crimes Law when its conditions are met.
• Insult, defamation and slander: where the clip is accompanied by words that harm honour and reputation or attribute facts that expose the person to contempt.
• Disclosure of secrets: concerns someone entrusted with a secret by virtue of a profession, such as a physician, nurse or responsible employee, who leaks a patient's image or information from the file. The person who filmed may be a participant or instigator if behind the leak.
• Disrupting the order of a session: dealt with immediately by the presiding judge through removal or a disciplinary sanction within their authority, with no complaint needed.
• Threats and blackmail: where the image is used to pressure a patient, employee or visitor for gain, as discussed in our article on online blackmail of minors, which also covers the role of the guardian of a child victim.
• Harm to security: where the filming touches a security or military site or information that may not be published.

Not every violation of instructions is a crime and not every crime ends in a penalty. The prosecution and the court look at intent, the harm and the circumstances, at whether the filming was in good faith to establish a right, and at whether the material was published or merely kept.

Tenth: civil liability and compensation

Apart from criminal proceedings, a person harmed by the filming or publication may bring a civil claim for compensation under the rules on harmful acts in the Civil Code, proving fault (filming or publishing without permission), harm (material or moral, such as damage to reputation and psychological distress), and a causal link between them. The judge assesses compensation by the seriousness of the harm, the circumstances of publication, its reach and the status of the injured person.

The claim may extend to those who took part in the publication, and to an employer answerable for an employee where the person filmed as part of or in connection with their work. Equally, where the clip revealed genuine and proven negligence, the court considers the legitimate motive and the truth of the facts. Compensation is not awarded merely because of publication if the content is shown to be true and the aim was permissible criticism rather than defamation.

Principles of the Court of Cassation

The Court of Cassation has consistently held that the sanctity of private life is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, and that infringing it through filming, recording or disclosure without the holder's consent is a fault that engages the liability of the person responsible once harm is shown.

It has also consistently held that permissible criticism of a public employee or public body gives rise to no liability where it is in good faith, relates to the performance of the office, rests on facts that are established or have a reasonable basis, and does not go beyond what is necessary into personal abuse and vilification.

Its case law holds that the lawfulness of evidence is for the judge to assess in light of how it was obtained and the circumstances of the case, and that evidence obtained by means that violate private life or by unlawful routes may lose weight or be excluded depending on the case, with the trial court enjoying discretion within sound reasoning.

On moral damages, it is settled that the amount lies within the discretion of the trial court, set according to the circumstances of each incident so as to redress the harm without unjust enrichment.

Methodological note: these are general principles distilled from judicial trends and presented for public awareness. They are not citations of any particular judgment and may change as case law develops. The latest published principles and the facts of each case must be reviewed before any position is built on them.

Practical Steps and Documents

If a security guard stops you from filming

• Comply on the spot. Heated argument with security turns the matter into an organisational breach or a complaint of disturbing order.
• Calmly ask the reason for the restriction and which body is responsible for these instructions, and ask for the incident to be recorded if you think the restriction is arbitrary.
• If your need is legitimate, such as documenting an employee's refusal of your transaction, ask the administration or head of department to record the refusal in writing or to register your complaint formally instead of filming.
• If your phone is taken or you are pressed to delete content you own, ask for this to be recorded in writing, do not resist physically, and after leaving pursue the formal channels.

If you or a relative were filmed in a hospital, court or government office

• Ask the person to stop at once and to delete the footage in your presence, and notify security or the facility's management immediately.
• Document the incident: the name of the facility, location, date, time and names of witnesses, and keep anything showing the camera was pointed at you.
• If the clip was posted, take screenshots showing the link, account name, date, comments and shares before the content is deleted.
• File a report with the authority responsible for information technology crimes or with the local police station, and consult a lawyer to determine the legal characterisation, a takedown request and preservation of evidence.
• If the person filmed is a child, a mentally ill patient or a victim of assault, notify the facility's management and the body responsible for child protection, and tell your lawyer, because it changes the characterisation.
• Do not exchange angry messages or counter-threats with the person who filmed or posted; they may be used against you.

If you want to document a violation or neglect lawfully

• Request a copy of your medical file, your transaction papers or the receipt for your submission.
• Submit a written complaint to the facility's management or the competent supervisory authority and keep its reference.
• Write a dated account of the incident, name witnesses if any, and keep messages and official notices.
• If the administrative decision itself is the harm, annulment and compensation proceedings before the Administrative Circuit are available. We discuss the enforcement of judgments against administrative bodies in our article on enforcing judgments against the administration.

Documents that help

• Your civil ID and anything showing your capacity (patient, guardian, representative or visitor).
• Screenshots, links, account names and dates of posting.
• Any letter, notice or sign showing the restriction in force at the place.
• The complaint submitted and any reply.
• Medical reports showing the psychological or health effect of the posting, if there was one.

Hypothetical Scenarios

Scenario one: a visitor films a crowded emergency department

A visitor waited a long time in the emergency department, took out his phone and filmed the crowded corridor. Patients lying on beds, some lightly dressed, appear in the footage. He posted it with a sarcastic caption about the hospital. One of those who appeared sent a message asking him to remove it, and the hospital's administration filed a complaint.

His position is weak. His purpose, showing the overcrowding, could have been achieved by footage that did not show faces, or by an official complaint. Publishing patients' faces is an intrusion on their privacy, and he may face criminal and civil liability toward those harmed. The best course is to delete the clip, apologise to those who appeared, and lodge his complaint about overcrowding through the official channel.

Scenario two: a litigant records the hearing on his phone

A litigant in a family case feared that his opponent's statements in the hearing would later be denied, so he covertly recorded audio and video of the session on his phone and afterwards sent the clip to relatives. The court became aware, and the session had been closed.

The error is double: recording in a closed session without permission, and then spreading what took place in it. The court may order him removed, the recording erased and him held to account. The correct route is to ask that his opponent's statements be entered in the minutes, which is every party's right, since the official minutes, not his private recording, are the accepted record.

Scenario three: an employee filmed refusing a transaction

A visitor filmed an employee who refused to accept complete paperwork. The employee asked him to stop, but he showed the clip to the head of department and filed a written complaint without posting anything. In a parallel case, another visitor posted the clip on a public account and described the employee in abusive terms.

The first used the clip in its legitimate context: evidence in an official complaint. The matter may be examined in light of the institution's instructions, but he did not go beyond the purpose of proof. The second moved from documenting to defaming and exposed himself to criminal and civil liability, even if the employee really was at fault, because an employee's failing does not justify insulting them or exposing them to the public.

Quick Comparison

• Patient rooms, intensive care and emergency departments: the strictest restriction. Filming without the patient's consent violates their confidentiality and exposes the filmer to liability, and posting multiplies it.
• Public areas of a hospital (entrance, reception): the institution's rules apply. Filming what concerns you without other people's faces is often tolerated unless signs forbid it.
• An open courtroom: openness is for attendance, not filming. Filming and recording need the presiding judge's permission.
• Closed hearings, family and juvenile cases: no filming and no publication of what happens; the breach is graver.
• Exterior of government buildings: generally permitted unless it is a security or sovereign site.
• Security and military sites and police stations: filming is not appropriate and may be treated as a threat to security.
• Filming for evidence without posting: may be tolerated within what is necessary, subject to the institution's instructions and the judge's assessment.
• Filming with posting and abusive commentary: the most serious combination, spreading liability across the filmer, the poster and the commenter.

Frequently Asked Questions

May I photograph a document or screen that concerns me inside a government office?

As a rule you may record your own paper, transaction number or the receipt handed to you, because it concerns you. What is not allowed is capturing someone else's data, employees' screens or other visitors' documents in the frame. If the office displays a no-photography sign, the safer course is to ask the employee for a written copy or an official printout.

Is a private hospital different from a public hospital on filming?

A patient's confidentiality and privacy are protected in both without distinction. The difference is that a private hospital sets its own policy and a public one follows its administrative authority's instructions. In practice the result is similar: do not film a patient or a medical team at work without permission.

I filmed my sick relative to follow their condition and sent it to our family. Is that a violation?

Sending a patient's photo to close relatives with their consent, or their guardian's, does not usually raise an issue. The problem arises when the patient is filmed without their knowledge, in a condition that detracts from their dignity, or when it is sent to a wider circle such as large groups or public platforms. What counts is consent and the scope of circulation.

May I photograph the body of a deceased relative in the hospital?

The dead have dignity and the family has a right to protect it. Filming and posting are not advisable, especially if others appear in the image. If you need to prove the death, the official documents are the death certificate and the medical report, not photographs.

Can a security guard confiscate my phone or force me to delete photos?

Security may stop you filming, ask you to cease and remove you if you insist. But seizing or searching a phone is a law-enforcement measure bound by legal conditions and carried out through the competent authority. If you are asked to delete what you filmed in front of them, complying eases the situation; if you believe there was an overreach, complain through the official route once matters have calmed.

May I photograph a court building from the outside?

Generally, photographing the exterior from a public place that does not compromise the facility's security is permitted. The interior, courtrooms, corridors and guard posts follow the administration's instructions and the presiding judge's authority. If you are a journalist, seek permission from the body responsible for media affairs at the court.

May I audio-record a hearing so I can go back to it?

Not without the presiding judge's permission. The official record of what happened is the minutes of the session; you may ask for any important statement to be entered there and you may request a copy of the minutes. Covert recording in the courtroom exposes you to liability.

Do journalists have a special right to film inside courts?

The press has the right to report news, not an absolute right to film. Filming and broadcasting from inside the courtroom require permission from the competent authority, and closed hearings, juvenile cases and family cases remain closed to publication.

Who is responsible: the person who filmed, the person who posted, or both?

Each person who contributed through their own fault. The filmer may answer for the filming, the poster for the posting, and a person who forwarded or commented abusively for that act. Each is assessed separately by the extent of their contribution, intent and the effect of what they did.

A clip of me was posted in a hospital or court without my permission. What is the first step?

Document the clip with screenshots, the link and the account name, ask the poster and the platform to remove it, file a formal complaint without delay, then consult a lawyer to determine the appropriate criminal and civil proceedings and a claim for compensation. Do not reply with a counter-post for which you could be held liable.

Does an apology and deleting the clip help after it has spread?

Deletion and apology do not erase the incident, but they reduce the harm and are usually seen as evidence of good faith, and may open the door to settlement with the person harmed. The injured person's right to go to court remains, depending on the circumstances, and late deletion does not remove liability for what happened while the clip was online.

Is it different if the person filmed is a child?

Yes. A child's image and identity are protected by special rules in the Child Rights Law and the Juveniles Law, covering children in hospitals, courts and care homes. The identity of a juvenile in a case before the courts may not be published. If you are a guardian, report at once.

May I film an employee who asks me for a bribe or an irregular payment?

If you encounter such a situation, the safer course is to report to the competent anti-corruption authority and the prosecution rather than self-collecting evidence, because evidence you gather yourself may raise questions about its lawfulness and effect in the case, whereas reporting moves the handling to the body with lawful means of capture. Whether something is usable as evidence is for the court to decide.

Conclusion

Filming in a hospital, a court or a government building is neither absolutely permitted nor absolutely forbidden. It is judged by a balance between the visitor's interest in documenting what is happening and the patient's privacy, the dignity of the judiciary, the security of the facility and the dignity of those who work there. The weaker and more sensitive the person filmed, such as a patient, a child or a litigant in a family case, the narrower the freedom to film and the wider the liability.

The practical rule we recommend: document what concerns you in the least intrusive way and without other people's faces, use the formal channels of written complaints, written requests and official copies, and do not publish what invades someone else's privacy, however justified your anger. The clip you regard as evidence may end up in your opponent's hands as evidence against you.

If you find yourself in difficulty because of filming or posting, or you are the one harmed by a clip that spread, every hour increases the effect. The best course is to move quickly to preserve the evidence and pursue the lawful route appropriate to your position.

Legal Notice

This article is general legal information about Kuwaiti law. It is not legal advice and does not create a relationship between the reader and the firm. The provisions it mentions are subject to legislative amendment and to judicial application to the facts of each case, and internal instructions differ from one institution to another.

If you were filmed or had material posted without permission in a hospital, court or government body, or you face a complaint or report because of a clip you took, the team at Yumnaak Law Firm studies the incident, preserves evidence, files the complaint or defends you against it, and brings or answers a compensation claim. Reach us through the contact page or book an appointment at the office through appointment booking.