Automated license plate readers (ALPR), such as Flock cameras, are causing an uproar across the nation, with many Americans believing their privacy is being violated in violation of their constitutional rights.
According to one recent report, there are currently 300,000 Flock surveillance devices spread across the country, tracking the movements and locations of millions of Americans.
People are turning Flock’s own mission against them
Last week, the creator of the Flock Surveillance Map, which color-codes each Flock device by model and plots it on a map, reported that a security firm filed a trademark complaint against him just one day after he released the map. The company claimed it was acting on behalf of Flock and asked for his website to be taken down.
This week, in an even bigger case of irony, a Canadian software engineer named Anthony Sistilli says he built a Flock-style camera to track police cars, turning surveillance technology on law enforcement, and it led to a visit to his home from police officers.
Why did they visit his home? Because, according to him, they wanted to know why he was tracking them. They were also worried that repeated observations might reveal their patterns. Those reasons also happen to be why so many American citizens find police use of Flock cameras so unsettling.
Sistilli, who lives in Brampton, Ontario, constructed his own ALPR camera and configured it to monitor police car movements. He described the camera as “a personal Flock surveillance camera to Flock the Flockers” and shared several videos on TikTok detailing its construction and operation.
His camera prompted a visit from the police
Last week, according to a video Anthony Sistilli posted on YouTube, officers from his local police department visited his home to politely discuss the camera with him.
“One of them took the time to specifically mention how scary it would be for them, because people would be able to find out where they lived, when they got on their shift and what they were doing throughout the day, and that that type of powerful information could put them personally at risk for any bad apples that might want to track them down and do things,” Sistilli said in the video.
Sistilli told Straight Arrow that the officers “made the case that their own cameras and ALPR technology weren’t as concerning as I was suggesting. My impression was that they weren’t familiar with many of the controversies or examples of misuse in the United States.”
Many municipalities are canceling their Flock contracts
Many police departments that have signed deals with Flock are beginning to reconsider. While they have helped solve some serious crimes, the cameras have also been used for nefarious reasons and have even been used to send people to jail who were completely innocent.
Using data from Deflock, which maps the locations of Flock cameras, Newsweek discovered last month that 149 counties and cities canceled or refused contracts or turned off their cameras between January and August of 2026. More have happened since August, when more than half of those cancellations took place.
“I never intended to create a giant network mapping every police officer, and I still don’t,” Sistilli said. “I wanted to see whether it was feasible and use the irony to illustrate a point. Sometimes it’s easier to show people what this kind of surveillance means by turning it around than by simply explaining what companies like Flock are doing.”