Canadian software engineer and YouTuber Anthony Sistilli built an automatic license plate recognition camera designed to track only police vehicles, a project he described as a personal Flock surveillance camera to "Flock the Flockers." On September 20, two Peel Regional Police officers visited his home in Brampton, Ontario, to ask about the device and his intentions. Sistilli posted a video about the encounter on October 7.
According to Tom's Hardware, Sistilli noted the irony in the officers' concerns: they said people could find out where officers lived, when they started shifts, and what they did during the day, with that information potentially putting them at risk. Sistilli argued those are exactly the concerns ordinary citizens have about constant ALPR surveillance. The officers reportedly responded that there was no effective way to address such concerns without revealing details of active investigations to criminals.
The broader context is Flock Safety's centralized network, which the company says has grown to over 120,000 cameras across 49 states, capturing billions of vehicle scans monthly. Researchers later identified hundreds of thousands of Flock cameras and created a public map of their locations, while reported misuse by officers—including stalking—has triggered public backlash and led some municipalities, including Los Angeles and Fullerton, to suspend or cancel their Flock contracts. Sistilli's build reverses the surveillance direction, using the same technology to watch the watchers.