What is Biometric Lock in Hawk Dashcam?
Biometric lock is a fail-closed security feature in Hawk that uses your fingerprint or face recognition to protect your most important dashcam footage in the evidence locker. Once locked, only you can access those clips, even if someone gains physical access to your phone.
How Biometric Lock Works
Hawk's evidence locker stores your most critical driving clips, and the biometric lock prevents anyone else from viewing or deleting them without your authentication. When you save a clip to the locker, you enable biometric protection using Face ID, Touch ID, or your device PIN as a fallback. The lock is fail-closed, meaning if biometric authentication fails, access is denied. This matters for rideshare drivers, insurance claims, and dispute resolution, where the integrity and authenticity of your footage can determine the outcome of a claim or legal case. As of June 2026, Hawk's evidence clips are also cryptographically signed with SHA-256 hashes, so you have cryptographic proof that footage has not been tampered with since recording.
Why Biometric Lock Matters for Dashcam Users
A dashcam is only as valuable as the evidence it captures. If your phone is stolen or seized, or if someone in your household tries to delete evidence after an accident, biometric lock ensures your locked clips remain protected. Rideshare drivers face particular risk, since passengers may request footage deletion or a driver's phone could be stolen during a shift. The combination of biometric lock and SHA-256 integrity hashing makes Hawk clips suitable for court submission, insurance claims, and police reports. Hawk also supports one-tap dispute export, which packages your locked clips with a SHA-256 manifest so you can send proof of authenticity to insurers or law enforcement.
Biometric Lock vs. Continuous Recording
Hawk records continuously by default, storing clips in a rolling loop so you always have the last few hours of driving. Not every clip needs biometric protection. You choose which incidents to save and lock: accidents, near-misses, traffic violations, or evidence of third-party liability. Free Hawk users get 10 clips per month; Local Pro and Rideshare Pro subscribers get unlimited saves. Once a clip is moved to the evidence locker and locked with biometrics, it is kept separately from rolling footage and syncs securely to your iCloud (Pro tier). This two-tier approach lets you use Hawk's dashcam passively every day, then actively protect only the clips that matter.
Biometric Lock and Evidence Grade Standards
Courts, insurance companies, and police departments increasingly expect dashcam evidence to meet strict authentication standards. Hawk's biometric lock, combined with SHA-256 hashing and the evidence locker, creates a chain of custody that documents when a clip was captured, that it has not been edited, and that only you have been able to access it. The manifest file included in the one-tap dispute export contains hashes for every clip, so recipients can verify authenticity. This is not a guarantee of legal admissibility, which depends on jurisdiction and context, but it provides the audit trail that insurance adjusters and courts expect when reviewing driving evidence.
Getting Biometric Lock on Your Phone
Biometric lock is built into Hawk and available on both iOS and Android at no extra cost. Free Hawk users can lock up to 10 clips per month. Local Pro (£3.99 per month or £39.99 per year) and Rideshare Pro (£8.99 per month or £69.99 per year) subscribers can lock unlimited clips. Your phone's biometric hardware must support Face ID, Touch ID, or fingerprint to use the feature. If your device does not have biometric sensors, Hawk falls back to PIN authentication. Locked clips in Pro tiers also sync to your iCloud automatically, so you have a backup copy separate from your phone's storage.
Start protecting your driving evidence with Hawk's biometric lock today.
Frequently asked questions
Can someone unlock my biometric lock without my fingerprint?
No. Hawk's biometric lock is fail-closed, meaning if authentication fails, access is denied. Your phone's biometric system (Face ID, Touch ID) is responsible for the actual authentication; Hawk enforces that only authenticated users can open the evidence locker.
What happens if I forget my PIN or my phone does not recognize my fingerprint?
You can reset your biometric lock using your device's standard security recovery (Apple ID for iOS, Google Account for Android). Locked clips remain protected during recovery. Contact support if you lose all access to your account.
Does biometric lock prevent me from exporting clips if I need them for a claim?
No. You authenticate with biometrics, open the locker, select the clips you need, and use the one-tap dispute export to create a ZIP file with SHA-256 manifest. You then send that export to your insurer, lawyer, or police department.
Is biometric lock the same as encryption?
Biometric lock is an access control layer that prevents unauthorised viewing or deletion. Clips are also encrypted in transit when synced to iCloud (Pro tier). Hawk does not encrypt clips on your device's local storage, so they can be recovered if your phone is stolen and the thief bypasses your device lock.
Can I use biometric lock on the free version of Hawk?
Yes. Free users can lock up to 10 clips per month. Locked clips count toward your 10-clip monthly limit. Pro tiers (Local Pro and Rideshare Pro) unlock unlimited saves and locks per month.
Do locked clips count toward my phone's storage quota?
Locked Pro clips sync to your iCloud (if you are on a paid tier), so they use iCloud storage, not device storage. Free and local clips stay on your device. You can review your iCloud usage in your device settings.