London uni students set up a whole security system to stop their party being shut down

Who knew you could D.I.Y. your own CCTV?


A group of London students living in halls have developed their own CCTV system allowing them to party without getting caught.

They used WhatsApp video calls as surveillance around their halls to keep watch for accommodation security and the police.

Their system allowed them to have a birthday party for over 30 students until the early hours of the morning without getting caught.

The students set up a WhatsApp video call between two phones and hid one of the phones near a lift entrance on the ground floor of their accommodation. This enabled them to keep track of everyone heading towards the flat where the party was being held.

They hosted the birthday party at a flat on the sixth floor of their accommodation, enabling them ample time to disperse back to their own flats if any security were caught on surveillance.

The students had to swap the phones every two hours because the call drains the battery life significantly.

None of the 30 students who attended the party were caught because of the CCTV system. It gave them enough time to escape to their own flats before the security arrived to break up the party. One party-goer told us they were relieved “when security did turn up it was great to see our system actually worked”.

Other residents in the halls were alarmed at the event and called the police. The Tab spoke to one of the students at the event who told us: “This was the only celebration we could give our flatmate in the pandemic. Let the man have a good birthday, we don’t need your snorty ass to ruin it.

“We’re trying to make the best of these bad circumstances. At this point (the halls) are just using Covid as an excuse to enforce arbitrary shit on us.”