Modifying existing hardware to detect surveillant technology in my community!! #swizsecurity #flock
The short version: A hobbyist hacker named JakeSwiz is repurposing hardware to sniff out ALPR gear like Flock cameras, putting DIY detection into regular people's hands.
Our Take
This is the kind of grassroots ingenuity that makes the surveillance industry nervous. JakeSwiz isn't waiting for a city council to vote on transparency or a vendor to publish an honest map of its own camera network — he's building tools to find that hardware himself. Whatever the technical details turn out to be, the impulse behind it matters: if Flock and similar companies won't tell residents where their cameras are, residents are going to find out on their own.
We've said it before: ALPR dragnets work precisely because most people have no idea how dense they've become or how little oversight governs them. A project like this chips away at that information asymmetry. It won't replace public records requests or local organizing, but it adds another layer of accountability from the ground up, which is exactly the kind of pressure that's forced some towns to reconsider their contracts.
Credit to JakeSwiz for putting real effort into a problem most people never think about until a camera flags their plate for no good reason. If you want to see what's already been documented in your area, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has concrete next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of JakeSwiz, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.