Inside Uzbekistan's Nationwide License Plate Surveillance System (techcrunch.com)
(Tuesday December 23, 2025 @10:30PM (BeauHD)
from the closer-look dept.)
- Reference: 0180447077
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/12/23/2220226/inside-uzbekistans-nationwide-license-plate-surveillance-system
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/23/inside-uzbekistans-nationwide-license-plate-surveillance-system/
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:
> Across Uzbekistan, a network of about a hundred banks of high-resolution roadside cameras continuously scan vehicles' license plates and their occupants, sometimes thousands a day, looking for potential traffic violations. Cars running red lights, drivers not wearing their seatbelts, and unlicensed vehicles driving at night, to name a few. The driver of one of the most surveilled vehicles in the system was tracked over six months as he traveled between the eastern city of Chirchiq, through the capital Tashkent, and in the nearby settlement of Eshonguzar, often multiple times a week. We know this because the country's sprawling license plate-tracking surveillance system [1]has been left exposed to the internet .
>
> Security researcher [2]Anurag Sen , who discovered the security lapse, found the license plate surveillance system exposed online without a password, allowing anyone access to the data within. It's not clear how long the surveillance system has been public, but artifacts from the system show that its database was set up in September 2024, and traffic monitoring began in mid-2025. The exposure offers a rare glimpse into how such national license plate surveillance systems work, the data they collect, and how they can be used to track the whereabouts of any one of the millions of people across an entire country. The lapse also reveals the security and privacy risks associated with the mass monitoring of vehicles and their owners, at a time when the United States is building up its nationwide array of license plate readers, many of which are [3]provided by surveillance giant Flock .
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/23/inside-uzbekistans-nationwide-license-plate-surveillance-system/
[2] https://cypeace.net/
[3] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/18/2038256/aclu-and-eff-sue-a-city-blanketed-with-flock-surveillance-cameras
> Across Uzbekistan, a network of about a hundred banks of high-resolution roadside cameras continuously scan vehicles' license plates and their occupants, sometimes thousands a day, looking for potential traffic violations. Cars running red lights, drivers not wearing their seatbelts, and unlicensed vehicles driving at night, to name a few. The driver of one of the most surveilled vehicles in the system was tracked over six months as he traveled between the eastern city of Chirchiq, through the capital Tashkent, and in the nearby settlement of Eshonguzar, often multiple times a week. We know this because the country's sprawling license plate-tracking surveillance system [1]has been left exposed to the internet .
>
> Security researcher [2]Anurag Sen , who discovered the security lapse, found the license plate surveillance system exposed online without a password, allowing anyone access to the data within. It's not clear how long the surveillance system has been public, but artifacts from the system show that its database was set up in September 2024, and traffic monitoring began in mid-2025. The exposure offers a rare glimpse into how such national license plate surveillance systems work, the data they collect, and how they can be used to track the whereabouts of any one of the millions of people across an entire country. The lapse also reveals the security and privacy risks associated with the mass monitoring of vehicles and their owners, at a time when the United States is building up its nationwide array of license plate readers, many of which are [3]provided by surveillance giant Flock .
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/23/inside-uzbekistans-nationwide-license-plate-surveillance-system/
[2] https://cypeace.net/
[3] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/11/18/2038256/aclu-and-eff-sue-a-city-blanketed-with-flock-surveillance-cameras
Creepy (Score:2)
by liqu1d ( 4349325 )
I'm all for using such systems to catch out those who are uninsured, no tax, no licence but logging movement just feels so intrusive and far beyond any need. Once you've been checked and found to be clean that should be the limit and you're deleted until the next time.
Open to the internet? That's Flocked up. (Score:2)
by SubmergedInTech ( 7710960 )
And totally unsurprising.
Not really a surprise Uzbekistan (Score:1)
Has a national license plate monitoring system. A little bit surprised to find out America has one but given who is president not all that much.