MDT responded to a senator’s inquiry regarding problems with registering phones in UzIMEI

Kabul Tursunov, the Deputy Chairman of the Senate Committee on Budget and Economic Affairs, sent a Senate inquiry to the Minister of Digital Technologies, Sherzod Shermatov, about issues with registering phones in the UzIMEI system.

The Minister was asked to clarify what measures are being taken to eliminate technical failures on the uzimei.uz, my.gov.uz platforms and the BIRDA application, as well as to reduce bureaucratic requirements when registering IMEI2 codes. In response, Sherzod Shermatov stated:

• additional payments when importing phones without a customs declaration are not related to IMEI registration fees but to customs duties;
• technical problems on the websites and in the application are promptly eliminated, work is being carried out to ensure their stable operation;
• all IMEI codes are subject to mandatory registration;
• further improvement of the system, simplification of registration and reduction of bureaucratic procedures are planned.

System performance results

Since the introduction of the system in 2019:

• the number of officially imported mobile devices increased from 575.8 thousand to 3.5 million in 2024 (an increase of 6.2 times);
• the number of registered IMEI codes increased from 1.6 million to 8.4 million (5.2 times increase);
• the share of official importers reached 80% (in 2023 — 60%), their number increased from 105 to 196, which sharply reduced grey imports;
• the volume of customs payments when importing phones increased from 37.5 billion soums in 2019 to 621.2 billion soums in 2024 (16.6 times).

The number of appeals to the Ministry of Digital Development regarding registration issues decreased by almost 11 times — from 1,028 in 2021 to 95 in 2024.

Fight against cybercrime

Together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the system is used in operational-search work:

• 20.3 thousand stolen or lost devices were included in the “black list”;
• 18.8 thousand were excluded from it;
• 47.4 thousand devices were monitored.

In 2025, 154 cases of IMEI gas meter cloning on 298 thousand mobile devices were identified — these codes are included in the “blacklist”, data is transferred monthly to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

New user protection system

The Ministry of Digital Development, together with the Central Bank, is developing a system “Ensuring Information Security at the Mobile Communication Level”. It will allow:

• protect users of banking and payment applications from fraudsters,
• reduce the financial losses of clients,
• simplify the investigation of cybercrime incidents.

In one of the banks, more than 2,000 attempts to illegally interfere with payment services were prevented during the first 15 days of the new system’s operation.

Shermatov highlighted that as a result of the system’s implementation, official mobile device deliveries to Uzbekistan soared from 13,500 to 3.5 million (an increase of 265 times), and the volume of customs payments made rose from 5.1 billion to 621.2 billion soums (a rise of 121 times).