This YouTuber turned Flock surveillance back on the cops. Suddenly, privacy matters

Who gets to watch whom? A Canadian YouTuber has built a Flock-like system to track officers, and it turns out the police are more sensitive about their privacy than regular citizens are expected to be.

Anthony Sistilli designed the system, similar to Flock’s automated license plate recognition (ALPR) technology, to identify police vehicles and log their license plates, locations, and timestamps.

Then, according to his video, the police showed up at his door with some questions.

“I found it extremely ironic that when I decided to point the camera the other way and watch the watchers, they had the same privacy concerns as we do,” the YouTuber said.

In the released footage, police officers are visible asking the YouTuber what his "main goal is” and what he plans to do with the captured data.

“I think that's the exact same concern that any civilian has. Right?” Sistilli is heard responding to the officers.

Despite police attention, the YouTuber may not have violated any laws.

The scene took place in Canada, and Canadian courts recognize that the public, including journalists and citizens, has a right to photograph and film police performing their duties in public.

The same applies in the US. The First Amendment protects US citizens’ right to photograph and record video or audio of on-duty police officers and other government officials performing their public duties in public spaces.

Flock has been invading privacy

Flock cameras capture plates and vehicle characteristics, associate sightings with locations and timestamps, and allow authorized users to search the resulting records.

While these capabilities can be useful when investigators are trying to locate a stolen vehicle or reconstruct a suspect's movements, they can also reveal patterns in the lives of people who are not suspected of wrongdoing.

Or such data can even be abused by law enforcement themselves.In August, a Kentucky police officer was arrested after authorities reported that he used the Flock ALPR camera system to track his ex-girlfriend more than 2,000 times.

The same month, a North Carolina police officer was arrested for allegedly using Flock license plate readers to track her boyfriend's ex-wife.

Double standards are causing outrage

While Flock’s CEO, Garrett Langley, is calling everyone to pay the price for security, this does not seem to be the case with law enforcement.

“When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they're prioritizing the wrong thing,” Langley said in the interview. “What we have to prioritize as a country is compromise.”

And these double standards are causing outrage. While Flock has been under scrutiny for invading the privacy of every citizen, not only those committing crimes, and people opposing Flock usage have been arrested, the police seem to have immunity.

The YouTuber's experiment resonates because it reverses the usual power dynamic. Police can investigate citizens' movements, but a citizen documenting police movements suddenly raises questions about potential misuse.

"Hey! No! Stop! Only we can do that!"

sarcastically joked one Redditor.

“Police have no right to privacy. They’re public servants,” reminded another."Oh, don't worry – we just use it to track criminals. Almost seems poetic when we turn it around on them,” points out the double standards commentator.“

If the cops are doing proper police work, they have nothing to hide. Of course, they aren't going to be happy to be spied on! They do not have accountability, since their department would have to cover them and pay the lawyers or a fine,” a Redditor claimed.

“If a majority of us aren’t doing anything wrong, then why the fuck do we need to be spied on?” raged another one.

Americans are fighting back against Flock

While authorities continue to roll out the Flock surveillance grid across the US, Americans are showing their opposition to the use of Flock cameras through multiple acts of civil disobedience.

Recently, social media has been discussing an attempt to fight back by targeting Flock’s CEO. After doxxing his home address, people marked the CEO's house as a public toilet on Google Maps.

Previously, there have been cases where Flock cameras were physically destroyed or taken down and returned to the Sheriff’s Office, as stated by the attacker, to liberate the people "from tyranny."

Some of the more creative protests included Star Wars villain Darth Vader, who showed up at the San Diego City Council meeting to endorse the use of Flock, as it is a perfect tool for tracking children.