YouTuber Builds DIY Flock Camera to Track Cops, Gets Knock at the Door

When the city of Brampton dropped 2 million Canadian dollars on fancy high-resolution license plate readers, software engineer and creator Anthony Sistilli decided to give municipal surveillance a spicy DIY spin. Instead of logging regular commuters, he built an automated license plate reader right at home and specifically programmed it to map the movements of local police cruisers.

He casually dropped a few clips on TikTok detailing how his homemade surveillance node operates, cheekily pitching it as a reverse panopticon to watch the watchers. It turns out law enforcement loves tracking cars right up until someone writes a script to catalog their own shifts, because officers from the Peel Regional Police showed up directly on his doorstep to interrogate his motives.

The visiting cops confessed that having someone record when they leave, where they patrol, and what routes they take is profoundly unsettling. According to the officers, letting ordinary folks access patrol schedules puts law enforcement at risk from bad actors who might hunt them down—an acute realization of privacy risks that seemingly vanishes when public departments blanket city roads in corporate surveillance tech.

The confrontation lands right as commercial spy-tech giant Flock faces widespread pushback across North America. Over 150 municipal districts across the US have severed or declined contracts with the firm, while states like Texas and Florida have hit the brakes entirely after mysterious rogue cameras cropped up with zero accountability. In one recent case, a federal judge in Tulsa blasted warrantless cruiser-tracking via automated plate readers as plain unconstitutional mass surveillance.

Mass surveillance is hailed as an essential civic safeguard until a single determined coder turns the lens around, instantly converting public safety tech into an existential threat the moment badges feel the glare.

Source: gizmodo.com