A massive Chinese database storing millions of faces and vehicle license plates was left exposed on the internet for months before it quietly disappeared in August.
While its contents might seem unremarkable for China, where facial recognition is routine and state surveillance is ubiquitous, the sheer size of the exposed database is staggering.
At its peak the database held over 800 million records, representing one of the biggest known data security lapses of the year by scale, second to a massive data leak of 1 billion records from a Shanghai police database in June. In both cases, the data was likely exposed inadvertently and as a result of human error.
The exposed data belongs to a tech company called Xinai Electronics based in Hangzhou on China’s east coast. The company builds systems for controlling access for people and vehicles to workplaces, schools, construction sites and parking garages across China.
Its website touts its use of facial recognition for a range of purposes beyond building access, including personnel management, like payroll, monitoring employee attendance and performance, while its cloud-based vehicle license plate recognition system allows drivers to pay for parking in unattended garages that are managed by staff remotely.
