"We know this because the country's sprawling license plate-tracking surveillance system has been left exposed to the internet. Security researcher 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."
"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."
"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 provided by surveillance giant Flock. Earlier this week, independent news outlet 404 Media reported that Flock left dozens of its own license plate reading cameras publicly exposed to the web, allowing a reporter to watch themselves being tracked in real time by a Flock camera."
About a hundred high-resolution roadside camera banks across Uzbekistan continuously scan license plates and vehicle occupants, logging potential traffic violations such as running red lights, missing seatbelts, and unlicensed nighttime driving. One frequently recorded vehicle was tracked for six months across Chirchiq, Tashkent, and Eshonguzar, often multiple times per week. The national license-plate tracking system was exposed online without a password, with artifacts indicating a database created in September 2024 and monitoring beginning mid-2025. The exposure demonstrates how such systems collect and enable persistent location tracking and underscores security and privacy risks amid growing deployment of similar readers internationally.
Read at TechCrunch
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]