It’s the latest development in a controversy attached to one of the newest products on offer from the public safety technology supplier. A report from 404 Media said that some of the data that powers the Nova platform from Flock come from data breaches.
On Friday, Flock said that it will not supply data from the dark web — meaning data bought via “known data breaches or stolen data,” according to the statement.
“We explored sourcing dark web data, but decided not to do so,” Holly Beilin, Flock’s director of communications, told Government Technology via email.
She said she doubted that the critical attention directed toward the company will dampen its government technology business, or that the lack of dark web data will weaken the tool.
“We are extremely confident in Flock Nova's ability to supercharge the speed and efficiency of investigations, even without this data,” Beilin said.
This latest controversy about privacy and other aspects of increasing sophisticated data tools for law enforcement comes as police and other emergency responders seek more real-time data that come from various sources — one of the main trends driving business in the public safety space.
Designed to bring together information from Flock’s license plate reading tools as well as video and other sources, the company says Nova will help police solve cases more quickly.
But as 404 Media reported, Flock employees have expressed worries that some of the data that helps to power Nova comes from breaches, including from a parking meter that was hacked.
For its part, Flock in its statement said the 404 Media story “used dubious sources — rumors, early product discussions and private, internal company discussions held in the name of transparency.”
The statement doesn’t clearly accuse 404 Media of being wrong. Asked about that, Beilin said the report was published before the company had “finalized” Nova, and that 404 Media was inaccurate when it reported that Nova will use information gained from data breaches.
“It was reported prematurely, during the period when the team was still determining exactly what sources Nova would utilize,” she said. “We are not building a product that will use data breaches.”
404 Media did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment about Flock’s latest statement.
Most of the statement offers an explanation of how data works within Nova and how the product was evaluated, with factors such as risk, privacy, feasibility and ethics part of the consideration.
In the statement, Flock goes on to say that Nova “consolidates pre-authorized datasets for investigators ... [and] breaks down traditional information silos.” The company emphasized that data accessed via Nova is based on sources that law enforcement clients already access and use.
“Imagine you have an entire filing room full of documents, photos and spreadsheets from the past 50 years, and you’re trying to find information on one event,” the statement reads. “Flock Nova is like the tenured executive assistant who put that first filing cabinet — and every one since — into that room, and knows exactly where to go when you need one file.”
For the past quarter, select law enforcement agencies have had early access to Nova, the company said, as Flock employees continued to evaluate the product. That’s when the company noticed that some data sourced from breaches were being used.
Going forward, Flock said that Nova will supply these data sources: public records information, open source intelligence (OSINT) and license plate reader data.
The Flock Nova tool also lets agencies connect their records management systems, computer-aided dispatch, and data from jail systems, “as well as all of the above from other agencies who agree to share that data.”
