14 DAY TRIAL // Forenza, an Israeli startup, has created a new subscription-based data platform to assist police departments and private investigators in solving crimes by using open sources, digital forensic evidence, and business intelligence from public social media channels. Police departments can view and coordinate public videos on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for $600 a month to help them solve crimes.
Forenza's co-founder Uri Boros stated that they can pinpoint all TikTok videos of people in cars or cars involved with criminal activity. The social media platform has a lot of criminal elements occurring on its website that police forces may use to help them locate individuals or places associated with reports.
“You start to realize there is a new social network (and) there are a lot of videos involving cars, cash money, or cars and license plates”.
If the idea of a data platform used by government-operated services can be used to catch members of the public, privacy and ethical questions naturally arise. Boros told CTech that the information collected and stored on the website is public and will never breach users' privacy.
If they upload it online for us to see, it can be seen, saved, and used by police officers who upload it to the Forenza cloud.
Forenza could assist police in collecting digital forensics in ways that were previously unavailable. Simply put, it is possible to arrange the data in such a way that it can differentiate between identifiable characteristics such as license plates, road signs, or body tattoos.
It can also result in admissible testimony in court, assisting in the capture, or exoneration, of those convicted of committing crimes.
Forenza’s digital forensics services may be extended to the U.S.
Forenza is currently used by Israeli police forces, but the company plans to extend to the United States later this year. The team consists of four members, including Boros and his co-founder Efim Lerner, who have also worked for governments and other open-source intelligence platforms for the past 20 years.