Saudi roads will soon be under more mass surveillance to monitor vehicle movement for safety and security reasons, a media outlet reported on Sunday.

A system of license plate recognition (LPR) is being implemented at the entry and exit points of cities to complement the existing speed monitoring Saher system, the report said.

Jeddah will be the first city to experience the new traffic system.

The new system will help catalog the movement of vehicles and individuals by capturing real-time images of the drivers and license plates. The system is also designed to calculate the time of a distance between one point and another is covered to determine if a vehicle has crossed the speed limit in areas not covered by Saher.

It is also expected that the new system will help capture people on the wanted lists or stolen vehicles.

Many people have raised concerns about the benefits of the new system.

“Just like Saher, it will be another source of revenue for the operating company,” said blogger Abu Bader Al-Ahmadi. “The public needs to be fully aware and educated about traffic rules and respecting them before tickets are issued in their names,” he added.

“I think there are much more pressing issues than monitoring roads … that’s maintaining them and making them more drivable,” said Abdulrahman Menshi.

“Saher’s introduction was not followed by mass media awareness and warning signs, which led to a massive number of violations detected by Saher,” he added.

“If the system depends on the time spent between two destinations to measure the average speed, then it is easy to cheat it,” one blogger said.

“All I have to do is have a long break at a rest area and go for the maximum speed…show me how the system can calculate my rest time.”

Nora Suliman said: “This system is plausible in some aspects, particularly monitoring suspicious behavior and matching against watch lists.”