Home made motion tracker
The short version: A hobbyist-built motion tracker shows how cheap DIY tech now rivals corporate surveillance tools like Flock Safety's ALPR network.
Our Take
Credit to the creator at Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency for tinkering with a homemade motion tracker and showing viewers just how little it takes — a few components, some code, and curiosity — to build a device that can watch and log movement. That's the uncomfortable lesson here: surveillance capability isn't locked behind some impenetrable corporate wall anymore. If a hobbyist can rig this up on a bench, you can bet companies like Flock Safety are deploying far more sophisticated, networked versions of the same idea on street corners and neighborhood entrances across the country.
The gap between a DIY project and a nationwide ALPR dragnet is really just scale and money, not concept. Flock's cameras aren't doing anything magical — they're automating the same basic trick of detecting and recording movement, then feeding it into databases that police, HOAs, and private subscribers can query without a warrant in most states. Videos like this one are useful precisely because they demystify the tech: once you see how simple the underlying mechanics are, the marketing language about 'public safety infrastructure' starts to look a lot more like what it is — a surveillance business model.
If this kind of tinkering makes you want to know what's already watching your street, check out our camera map to see documented ALPR locations near you, and visit our take-action page for ways to push back on unchecked camera deployment in your community.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.