A Mississauga resident and YouTuber got a visit from police after he posted about a device he created to track police vehicles.
The YouTuber, Anthony Sistilli, said he built his own “Flock” camera and then recorded himself testing out the device near Shopper’s World in Brampton.
Flock Safety is a U.S. manufacturer and operator of surveillance hardware and software. The company operates networks of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs. People have raised concerns about mass surveillance, privacy and misuse of the system in the U.S.
A Washington Post investigation found police were using the Flock cameras to track down the ex-partners. The surveillance systems can reconstruct where people have been, when and how often.
There are also concerns about other unauthorized institutions gaining access to the surveillance systems.
While Flock is not in Canada, a similar $11.4-million camera program was announced in Brampton in March 2025. In May, the City of Brampton said the 50 high-tech cameras equipped with 360-degree imaging and automated licence plate recognition technology were being used by police, providing digital evidence in cases ranging from auto thefts and hit-and-runs to violent crimes and extortion investigations.
In the U.S., there are portals to access logs on what police officers are searching. But in Canada, people are not easily able to access records of police searches on the cameras, Sistilli noted.
Sistilli criticized the lack of transparency in Canada. So he created a system with a camera that could track and log license plates of police vehicles.
He was able to use the system to track two police vehicles in about one hour near Shopper’s World in early September.
Then, on Sept. 20, two Peel Police officers came to his door and asked Sistilli what the goal of the video tracking is and what he plans to do with the system.
A Peel Regional Police spokesperson told INSAUGA Canada that they received “information regarding a YouTube channel operated by Anthony Sistilli that featured content demonstrating the use of Automatic Licence Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology to identify and track marked police vehicles and their locations.”
“Police met with Sistilli to better understand the video, technology, and the purpose behind it. Police then determined that no further action was required,” the spokesperson said.
Sistilli did a deeper dive into Flock cameras, interviewing politicians in the U.S. and looking into the issues surrounding the system. He posted an over 30-minute video on the topic on his YouTube channel.
“Flock-like surveillance cameras are already in Canada (Brampton, for example) and we should be super worried,” Sistilli said.
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