YouTuber turns license plate camera back on police until officers allegedly show up at his doorstep: ‘how scary it would be for them’

Anthony Sistilli took a tool that police use on everyone else and pointed it the other way. The Canadian YouTuber built a license plate camera that looks only for police cars. After he posted videos of the project, the local force reportedly took notice.

According to a Tom’s Hardware report, Sistilli said two Peel Regional Police officers came to his home in Brampton, Ontario, on September 20. He says they asked what he planned to do with the device. Sistilli, a software engineer, described the visit in a video posted on October 7.

Sistilli says one officer spoke at length about the risks for police. “One of them [the officers] 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,” Sistilli narrated.

Police have privacy concerns, too

He found the concern ironic. In his view, it matches what many ordinary people feel about automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras. He argued that these networks need clearer policies and better systems around them. The officers reportedly replied that there was probably no effective way to do that without giving details of active investigations to criminals.

Sistilli first showed the build in several TikTok videos. He described it as “a personal Flock surveillance camera to Flock the Flockers.” The name nods to Flock Safety, a U.S. public safety company.

Flock says its network now runs more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states. The company says they capture billions of vehicle scans every month. Critics point out that any police department on the network can search across state lines. They also say no public vote or federal oversight shaped that setup. Similar ALPR networks exist in Canada, where Sistilli lives.

Reports of misuse have added to the pressure. Investigations have documented cases of officers misusing the database, including to track former partners and their acquaintances. Some cases have resulted in disciplinary action. In some areas, residents have covered or destroyed cameras. Los Angeles and Fullerton are among the cities that have suspended or canceled their Flock contracts.

Flock and its supporters say the network helps lower crime, a claim critics say misreads the data. The company’s leadership has also defended the system in public. Sistilli’s video also examines the marketing Flock uses to win over local governments.

Data security is another open question. Flock says its cameras use on-device encryption and keep images only briefly before sending them to company servers. Even so, hackers reportedly extracted more than 27,000 clips and 1.6 million images from a stolen camera. Those images were captured over 21 days. Security researchers also found 335,701 Flock cameras and built a public map of their locations.