Frequently asked.
The questions that come up most often, answered without spin. If something here is unclear, or if you have a question that is not covered, the about page has contact details. This list will grow as the project grows — feedback is welcome, and corrections especially so. Streetside is a small project; the FAQ is meant to be the fastest path to a real answer.
The basics
What is Streetside?
Streetside is an editorial frontend for Jakarta's public CCTV feeds. It aggregates 1,280 government-operated street cameras into a single, free, browsable index. Think of it as a directory and viewer — not a surveillance tool. No accounts, no ads, no tracking. The goal is simple access to a public dataset that already exists but is hard to navigate.
Who runs this?
An independent developer based in Jakarta. This is a personal project — not a company, not a startup, not a government contractor. The codebase, hosting, and editorial decisions are all handled by one person. If you want to get in touch, the about page has contact details.
Is this an official DKI Jakarta site?
No. Streetside is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the DKI Jakarta provincial government. We consume the same public camera feeds that the government publishes openly, then organize them in a more usable way. For official information, visit jakarta.go.id directly.
Why "Streetside Jakarta" — there's a Microsoft Streetside?
Microsoft's Streetside is a feature inside Bing Maps that shows panoramic street imagery, similar to Google Street View. This site is unrelated. The name here refers literally to what you see — what's happening on the side of the street, right now, through public cameras. Different product, different company, different idea.
Is it free?
Yes. Free to use, no signup required, no paywall, no premium tier. Hosting costs are absorbed personally. If the project ever needs sustainable funding, it would come from optional support — never from ads or selling user data. That is a hard line.
The data
Where do the cameras come from?
Every camera shown here is a public feed published by DKI Jakarta agencies — primarily Dinas Perhubungan (transportation) and Dinas Bina Marga (highways). The streams are openly accessible; we do not bypass any access control. We just index, label, and display them in a more navigable interface.
How often does the data refresh?
Camera frames refresh roughly every 5 to 30 seconds depending on the source agency and the individual feed. This is "near real-time" — close enough to be useful for traffic and weather, but not a continuous video stream. Some feeds update faster, others slower. The system polls each one on its own schedule.
Why are some cameras dark or showing the same frame?
Cameras go down. Sometimes the feed is offline for maintenance, sometimes the network at the camera site is unstable, sometimes the source agency has paused publishing. A frozen frame usually means the camera is reachable but not delivering fresh imagery. We display the last known frame rather than hiding the camera entirely.
How many cameras are covered, and which neighborhoods?
Currently 1,280 cameras across all five Jakarta administrative cities — Jakarta Pusat, Utara, Barat, Selatan, and Timur — plus the Kepulauan Seribu islands. Coverage is densest along major arteries like Sudirman, Thamrin, and the inner ring road. The neighborhoods page lists every kelurahan with available cameras.
Can I save or download a clip?
No built-in download tool. Streetside displays current frames; it does not record or archive video. If you need to capture a moment, your operating system's screenshot tool works. We deliberately do not store historical footage — that would change the project from a viewer into an archive, with very different privacy implications.
Privacy & ethics
Isn't this just surveillance?
It is a fair concern. The cameras themselves are surveillance infrastructure operated by the government — that part is already true with or without this site. What Streetside does is make the existing public feeds easier to find. The cameras point at streets, not into homes, and they are intended for traffic and public-space monitoring.
Are faces or license plates blurred?
No. The feeds arrive from the source agencies as-is, and we display them as-is. The image quality is generally low enough that individual faces are hard to identify at typical street distances, but license plates can sometimes be legible on closer cameras. We do not run additional blurring; doing so would also strip useful detail.
Can I request that a camera be removed?
If you have a specific privacy concern about a particular camera — for example, it points unusually close to a private property — please reach out via the contact details on the about page. The right long-term fix usually has to come from the source agency, but we can hide individual feeds from this index in clear cases.
What's the legal status of accessing these feeds?
The feeds are published openly by DKI Jakarta. We access them the same way any browser or scraper would, with no credentials and no rate-limit evasion. Indonesian regulation around public CCTV is still evolving, but to our knowledge there is no rule against displaying publicly broadcast camera streams. If that changes, the project changes with it.
What license is the data under?
The underlying camera imagery belongs to the publishing agencies — we do not claim any rights over it. The Streetside interface, code, and editorial content on this site are released under a permissive open license. The data sources page links to upstream attribution where it is required.
Using the site
How does "Nearby" work — do you store my location?
Nearby uses the browser's built-in geolocation API, which only runs after you explicitly grant permission. Your coordinates are used in-browser to sort cameras by distance and are never sent to any server, logged, or stored. Close the tab and the data is gone. There is no analytics layer attached to it.
Does it work on mobile?
Yes. The interface is built mobile-first and tested on small screens. Camera frames are sized down for cellular connections, and the navigation is designed to work one-handed. Performance on older Android devices is a priority — this is Jakarta, not San Francisco. If something feels slow on your phone, please report it.
Is there an API?
Not a public one yet. There is an internal JSON endpoint that powers the site, and a documented public API is on the roadmap. If you have a specific use case — research, journalism, civic tech — get in touch and we can usually share a tailored data dump in the meantime.
Can I embed a camera on my own site?
Embedding is not officially supported yet. You can link to individual camera pages and they will render fine when opened, but there is no iframe widget or oEmbed endpoint. A proper embed format is planned. For now, deep-linking to a camera URL is the most reliable way to share a specific feed.
What about accessibility (screen readers)?
Accessibility is taken seriously. All pages use semantic HTML, every interactive control has a keyboard equivalent, and camera frames carry descriptive alt text including the location name. Color contrast meets WCAG AA. Live video is inherently visual, but metadata around each camera — name, location, status — is fully readable by assistive technology.
Last updated: 28 April 2026