Viral Parking App Revealing Cop Locations Gets Canceled Within Hours

A recently launched app in San Francisco, designed to track parking enforcement officers in real time, faced swift termination just four hours after it became available to the public.

Titled Find My Parking Cops, this innovative tool, developed by Riley Walz, enabled users to monitor where parking citations were being issued almost in real time. The app featured a competitive leaderboard that displayed which officers had collected the most fines, with one ranking officer accumulating over $15, 000 in citations before the app ceased functioning.

Utilizing data scraping techniques, the application predicted parking ticket ID numbers and mapped recorded violations using information from the city’s payment portal. This allowed residents of San Francisco to observe the issuance of tickets as it occurred.

I reverse engineered the San Francisco parking ticket system. I can see every ticket seconds after it’s written. So I made a website. Find My Friends? AVOID THE PARKING COPS.pic.twitter.com/67MOWVMleF

— Riley Walz (@rtwlz) September 23, 2025

Insights gleaned from the app showed striking patterns, such as one officer issuing 12 tickets at a singular downtown location within just two hours, while another officer issued over 60 citations on the same day in Noe Valley.

Rapid Shutdown of the App

However, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) promptly moved to restrict access to the app within hours of its launch. Behind this swift action was a commitment to protecting enforcement staff. In a media statement, Walz remarked, “Ahhhhhh … the MTA just changed their site, so I am no longer getting data!” The San Francisco Standard reported]

RIP. In lightning speed, the city changed their site so I can no longer get data. That’s probably it.

— Riley Walz (@rtwlz) September 23, 2025

Erica Kato, a spokesperson for the SFMTA, explained that this measure was implemented to ensure that citations remained an effective tool for maintaining compliance with parking regulations. She stated, “Citations are a tool to ensure compliance with parking laws, which help keep our streets safe and use our limited curb space efficiently and fairly.” Kato acknowledged the potential benefits of technology while emphasizing the need for a safe working environment for enforcement officers.

Despite the quick shutdown, Walz reported that the website was back online by 10 PM local time, leaving uncertainty around its future availability.

CORRECTION: THE SITE’S BACK UP! GUESS WHO’S BACK, BACK AGAIN https://t.co/rml7oruE7S pic.twitter.com/1nZLv3TBuq

— Riley Walz (@rtwlz) September 24, 2025

Walz, who previously gained attention for creating a viral fake New York City steakhouse, views this parking app as both a practical utility and a dataset that could inspire further projects. He intends to release the raw data as a spreadsheet, which will empower residents to analyze their likelihood of receiving tickets based on geographical patterns and officer activity.

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