When police showed up to Anthony Sistilli’s front door in September, it wasn’t to accuse him of a crime or take a witness statement, but to ask how he could have the nerve to turn AI-integrated surveillance cameras on the cops themselves.
A Canadian software engineer and YouTuber, Sistilli became interested in automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) following the explosion of outrage against surveillance company Flock Safety in the US, Tom’s Hardware reported. Though Canada lacks a centralized corporate surveillance regime like Flock in the US, the country’s police have been rapidly scaling a more decentralized ALPR network with cameras that function in much the same way.
Responding to the rise in government surveillance, Sistilli decided to homebrew his own ALPR — though instead of tracking random civilians, it was designed to track police cars.
“I started to wonder, how hard is it to actually make a company like Flock?” Sistilli explained in a YouTube video.
