Flock LPR Announces People Locator “Nova” Tracking System
Flock, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company whose cameras are installed in more than 5,000 communities in the U.S., is building a product that will use people lookup tools, data brokers, and data breaches to “jump from LPR [license plate reader] to person,” allowing police to much more easily identify and track the movements of specific people around the country without a warrant or court order, according to internal Flock presentation slides, Slack chats, and meeting audio obtained by 404 Media.
The news turns Flock, already a controversial technology, into a much more invasive tool, potentially able to link a vehicle passing by a camera to its owner and then more people connected to them, through marriage or other association. The new product development has also led to Flock employees questioning the ethics of using hacked data as part of their surveillance product, according to the Slack chats. Flock told 404 Media the tool is already being used by some law enforcement agencies in an early access program.
Flock’s new product, called Nova, will supplement license plate data with a wealth of personal information sourced from other companies and the wider web, according to the material obtained by 404 Media. “You’re going to be able to access data and jump from LPR to person and understand what that context is, link to other people that are related to that person […] marriage or through gang affiliation, et cetera,” a Flock employee said during an internal company meeting, according to an audio recording. “There’s very powerful linking.” One Slack message said that Nova supports 20 different data sources that agencies can toggle on or off.
Flock sells its ALPR cameras to communities, homeowners associations, schools, and businesses with the promise of solving crime and deterring criminals. Communities can then opt to share their cameras’ data with law enforcement, and law enforcement agencies purchase their own Flock cameras too. The cameras continuously record the plates, color, and make of vehicles passing in front of them, and store a timestamp of when, and where, each vehicle was spotted. Flock has also expanded into drones and gunshot detection. Nova will make the product even more invasive, experts say.
“Flock has hundreds of customers, both law enforcement and private residents. This development will certainly help to bring expanded surveillance powers to police departments of all sizes that never needed this much information on any random person who happens to drive by,” Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at activist organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told 404 Media in an email.
In the meeting audio obtained by 404 Media, the Flock employee described the sorts of information the company will supplement ALPR data with. The first is data breaches. One example the employee pointed to was a 2021 data breach impacting users of Park Mobile, an app that allows users to pay for parking without physically going to the parking meter or in some lots where meters no longer exist. That data included license plate numbers with their owners’ associated email addresses, phone numbers, and in some cases mailing addresses. With regards to Flock, “Nova ingests that and is able to use that to contextualize the data. So we’re now able to make that cognitive leap from LPR to person,” the employee said.
