Flock Exposed - Nova and the Dark Data Pipeline
Flock Safety's product Nova is marketed as a "data search" tool that lets police pull together information on people, not just vehicles. It has become one of the company's most contested products.
In May 2025, 404 Media published an investigation alleging that Flock Safety's upcoming product, Flock Nova, integrates people lookup data sourced from hacked and breached databases. Flock told 404 Media the tool was already being used by some law enforcement agencies.
Source: 404 Media, "License Plate Reader Company Flock Is Building a Massive People Lookup Tool, Leak Shows"
Internal Flock Slack messages reviewed by 404 Media showed the company's own employees raising ethical concerns about using hacked data, with one employee writing that relying on illegally obtained data could create perverse incentives for more data to be leaked and stolen.
Source: 404 Media, "License Plate Reader Company Flock Is Building a Massive People Lookup Tool, Leak Shows"
GovTech also reported on the controversy, noting that the data accessible via the platform reportedly came from breaches, not just public records or other conventional commercially available information.
Source: GovTech, "Flock's Newest Police Tool Sparks Data Controversy"
Flock pushed back publicly, publishing a statement titled "Correcting the Record: Flock Nova Will Not Supply Dark Web Data," and a company representative said the critical reporting relied on rumors, early product discussions, and private internal conversations that predated the finalized product.
Source: Flock Safety company blog, "Correcting the Record: Flock Nova Will Not Supply Dark Web Data"; GovTech, "Flock Safety Pushes Back on Data Breach Product Criticism"
Shortly after the 404 Media and IPVM reporting, Flock announced it would no longer use dark web or leaked data in Nova at all.
Source: IPVM, "404 Media Talks About Their Reporting's 'Huge' Impact on Flock"
But the story did not end with that promise. Independent security research into Flock Nova's own code reported finding what the researcher described as a fully wired "Dark Data" search pipeline, with selectors and fields for Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, crypto wallets, IP addresses, and usernames - appearing to directly conflict with Flock's public statement that Nova will not supply dark web data.
Source: Independent security research published at nexanet.ai, "License Plate Reader Company Flock Said It Does Not Use Dark Web Data. My Analysis of Their Code Tells a Different Story"
That analysis included screenshots of the Nova search configuration, permission checks, and the Dark Data interface itself, laying out the technical basis for the claim rather than relying on secondhand description.
Source: Independent security research published at nexanet.ai
Even setting the dark web question aside, Nova reportedly still pulls in open-source intelligence, credit information, and other commercial datasets alongside Flock's own vehicle records - meaning the underlying concern behind Nova is broader than any single data source: it is a tool built to link a license plate to a full profile of a person's identity and financial life.
Source: Compiled surveillance-accountability reporting on Flock Safety, 2026
Questions to Ask Your Town
Has your town's police department purchased or piloted Flock Nova? If so, what data sources feed into it, and has the department independently verified Flock's claim that no dark web or breach data is used? Who audits what categories of personal data - financial, identity, or otherwise - officers can pull up on a resident, and under what justification? Is there any policy requiring a warrant or reasonable suspicion before an officer runs a person, rather than just a plate, through Nova?
This page will be updated as more factual sources become available.