Why a locked evidence locker is not just a nice-to-have

The moment we stopped thinking about features and started thinking about trust

When we first built Hawk, the obvious question was obvious: how do we make sure the video you've recorded is actually the video you recorded? Not edited in post, not selectively deleted, not replaced with something else entirely. We added SHA-256 integrity hashing to every clip. That's the kind of cryptographic fingerprint that would stand up in court if anyone tried to claim the footage was doctored.

But hashing wasn't enough. A hash only tells you if something changed; it doesn't stop someone from accessing your locked clips without permission. We kept thinking about this. A dashcam is supposed to protect you. But what if someone else got hold of your phone and deleted your best evidence before you could file a dispute? What if, during a repair visit or a theft, someone accessed your footage and either wiped it or modified it?

The biometric lock came from that question. It's fail-closed. If your fingerprint or face ID fails, the locked clips stay locked. No fallback PIN, no password recovery, no desperation workaround. That sounds harsh, but it's the whole point. You're the only person who can unlock your own evidence.

The people who need this most aren't asking for it

Rideshare drivers taught us this. We started hearing from Uber and Lyft drivers who were nervous about having footage on their phones. Not because they'd done anything wrong, but because they didn't want a passenger, an angry ex, or a thief to see or delete their most important clips.

One driver in London told us his phone had been stolen mid-shift. He lost the device, but his clips were safe because they were in the locked Evidence Locker. The thief couldn't access them. More usefully, he could still file his dispute with the passenger from a new phone, because the Pro tier syncs locked clips to iCloud. The footage was worth more than the phone.

New drivers often don't think about this either. They're excited to have recording capability. They don't immediately grasp that the footage is evidence, or that it's valuable to other people. By the time they need it, someone has already tried to access it, or worse, delete it. The lock isn't a paranoid feature; it's a baseline expectation if you're serious about evidence.

What fail-closed actually means when it matters

People sometimes ask why we didn't just add a regular password or PIN to the Evidence Locker. The answer is that passwords fail. Phones break, people forget, recovery flows leak footage, fallback systems create loopholes. We chose biometric because it's the one authentication method tied directly to you, not to a secret you can write down or lose.

Fail-closed means that if your face ID isn't recognised, or your fingerprint doesn't match, the clips stay locked. There's no 'Try again later'. There's no 'Unlock as guest'. The moment an investigator or insurance company opens your locked clips, they know that only you have touched them since they were recorded. That's what makes them admissible in small claims court or a police report.

In the rideshare world, cabin footage (available in Rideshare Pro) becomes sensitive very quickly. You're recording passenger conversations, potentially identifying information, disputes about fares or conduct. The biometric lock ensures that footage doesn't leak to the passenger, doesn't end up in a HR folder someone else can access, and can't be weaponised by someone who steals your phone.

The story of why we didn't make this optional

We could have made the biometric lock something you turned on if you felt paranoid. We thought about it. But then we realised something: the whole point of an Evidence Locker is that it's secure by default. Not secure if you remember to lock it. Not secure if you enable it in settings. Secure from the moment the clip lands there.

That's also why locked clips get the iCloud sync treatment in Pro. If your phone dies, gets stolen, or you switch devices, your evidence doesn't vanish. It's yours. It's protected. And it's available when an insurance company or police force asks for it. We made it automatic because manually syncing evidence sounds great until you're actually trying to gather it under stress.

The cost of getting this wrong is high. I've seen people in forums and Reddit threads describe what happens when they can't prove their footage is authentic. Insurers reject claims. Police won't file reports. In small claims court, the judge assumes the video is worthless if there's any question about tampering. Our job is to make sure you never face that doubt.

The question we keep asking ourselves

Every few months, someone asks if we can add a master recovery key for locked clips, or a way to bypass the biometric lock with a password, or some kind of corporate override. The answer is always no. The moment we add a backdoor, the whole system becomes worthless. The biometric lock only matters if it's actually fail-closed, if there's no secret override, if nobody but you can access it.

That's a harder sell than it sounds. People want options. They want escape routes. But a dashcam that can be cracked is a dashcam you can't trust, and we built Hawk for people who need to trust their evidence.