Skip to main content
Navigate back to homepage
Open search bar.
Open main navigation menu

Main navigation

  • Study
    UCL Portico statue
    Study at UCL

    Being a student at UCL is about so much more than just acquiring knowledge. Studying here gives you the opportunity to realise your potential as an individual, and the skills and tools to thrive.

    • Undergraduate courses
    • Graduate courses
    • Short courses
    • Study abroad
    • Centre for Languages & International Education
  • Research
    Tree-of-Life-MehmetDavrandi-UCL-EastmanDentalInstitute-042_2017-18-800x500-withborder (1)
    Research at UCL

    Find out more about what makes UCL research world-leading, how to access UCL expertise, and teams in the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation and Global Engagement).

    • Engage with us
    • Explore our Research
    • Initiatives and networks
    • Research news
  • Engage
    UCL Print room
    Engage with UCL

    Discover the many ways you can connect with UCL, and how we work with industry, government and not-for-profit organisations to tackle tough challenges.

    • Alumni
    • Business partnerships and collaboration
    • Global engagement
    • News and Media relations
    • Public Policy
    • Schools and priority groups
    • Visit us
  • About
    UCL welcome quad
    About UCL

    Founded in 1826 in the heart of London, UCL is London's leading multidisciplinary university, with more than 16,000 staff and 50,000 students from 150 different countries.

    • Who we are
    • Faculties
    • Governance
    • President and Provost
    • Strategy

Crime enabled by autonomous vehicles

Breadcrumb trail

Research summary

According to Gartner, the number of vehicles with autonomous driving capability will reach 2.5 million by 2028. While autonomous vehicles, especially cars, promise to deliver many benefits including travel comfort, improved safety and a reduction in the number of road accidents and deaths due to human error, there are concerns around adoption including trust, privacy, reliability, liability, crime, security and resilience. Autonomous cars are highly connected vehicles that use large sets of data from a wide range of external and internal sensors – such as lidar, radar, cameras and ultrasonic sensors. Artificial intelligence (AI), especially machine learning (ML) techniques including deep learning (DL) have a critical role in processing these data to train and validate automation tasks and make real-time decisions to navigate through traffic effectively and safely. Unfortunately, the new technology that enables autonomous cars, including the operating environment and supporting infrastructure is vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Moreover, we are yet to understand how criminals might monetise (or otherwise benefit from) attacks against autonomous vehicles or use them as a tool for crime.

Possible security threats include coordinated attacks using multiple autonomous vehicles, exploiting autonomous vehicles as weapons, attacking other vehicles such as police cars, using ransomware for extortion, blocking roads, tunnels and other critical infrastructure, diverting traffic, stealing sensitive personal data and property, helping criminals escape or watch potential robbery locations, and cause collisions by hiding objects on the road. Autonomous vehicles might also enable new crimes that we have not considered yet.

Consequently, this scoping study will bring together academics, researchers, industry, government, professionals and relevant professional bodies to consider the emerging and future crimes related to autonomous vehicle systems.  Participants will be asked to consider the likely success of these new types of crimes, crime surface scalability, skills set required, economic motivations and what should be done to prevent them. The study will help to identify emerging crimes, and shape (and prioritise) future research directions to improve the security of future technological developments and legislation.

Lead Investigator(s)

Dr Nilufer Tuptuk, UCL Security and Crime Science (n.tuptuk@ucl.ac.uk)

Outputs 
  • Tuptuk, N., Brown, A., and Johnson, S.D. (2025). Policy brief: Crime Facilitated by Connected Autonomous Vehicles, Dawes Centre for Future Crime, UCL.
  • Brown, A., Johnson, S.D., and Tuptuk, N. (2025). A scoping study: crime and connected and autonomous vehicles. Crime Science, 14(2). 

More from UCL Engineering...

Engineering Foundation Year
UCL East Marshgate building at dusk

Programme Spotlight

Engineering Foundation Year

We'll help you to gain new knowledge, learn academic and study skills, and develop your confidence levels so you'll have what it takes to transform your life.

Inaugural Lectures
Farhaneen Mazlan delivering a talk at UCL

Event series

Inaugural Lectures

An opportunity to explore ground-breaking research that is shaping the future and transforming the world.

Disruptive Thinkers Video Series
Dr Claire Walsh looking at a human organ in an imaging facility

Watch Now

Disruptive Thinkers Video Series

From making cities more inclusive to using fibre optics in innovative medical procedures, explore the disruptive thinking taking place across UCL Engineering.

UCL footer

Visit

  • Bloomsbury Theatre and Studio
  • Library, Museums and Collections
  • UCL Maps
  • UCL Shop
  • Contact UCL

Students

  • Accommodation
  • Current Students
  • Moodle
  • Students' Union

Staff

  • Inside UCL
  • Staff Intranet
  • Work at UCL
  • Human Resources

UCL social media menu

  • Link to Soundcloud
  • Link to Flickr
  • Link to TikTok
  • Link to Youtube
  • Link to Instagram
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to Twitter

University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 2000

© 2025 UCL

Essential

  • Disclaimer
  • Freedom of Information
  • Accessibility
  • Cookies
  • Privacy
  • Slavery statement
  • Log in