Connecting the dots: Flock Security’s speedy development has made it a significant participant in police surveillance know-how. However as cities deploy extra related cameras, a fundamental safety concern is drawing elevated consideration: whether or not the video collected by these techniques could be altered with out abandoning proof. That concern has taken on new urgency following studies that considered one of Flock’s key buyers additionally backs an organization whose know-how is designed to compromise digital camera techniques.
Andreessen Horowitz, which led Flock’s $275 million funding spherical in March 2025, has additionally backed Toka, an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm that has reportedly developed instruments able to breaking into related cameras and manipulating their footage.
The connection between the 2 firms – their shared investor – got here to gentle after an X submit from @OrwellDay alleged that Flock’s lead investor additionally backed Toka. The submit didn’t set up the connection by itself, however subsequent reporting confirmed that Andreessen Horowitz led Flock’s March 2025 funding spherical and has invested in Toka.
Flock has raised roughly $960 million throughout a number of funding rounds, together with the March 2025 spherical, which valued the corporate at $7.5 billion. Andreessen Horowitz led that financing, with participation from Greenoaks Capital and Bedrock Capital. Meritech Capital, Matrix Companions, Sands Capital, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Tiger World, and Y Combinator additionally participated.
– Orwell Day (@OrwellDay) August 4, 2026
The hyperlink between Flock and Toka places a sharper give attention to the dangers surrounding digital camera networks utilized by police departments and native governments. Flock sells digital camera techniques that assist businesses determine autos, share info, and search video information. Toka, in keeping with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has supplied authorities shoppers know-how that may find cameras in a goal space, entry their feeds, and alter or erase video.
The reported functionality will not be merely about surveillance. It raises broader questions in regards to the reliability of video proof after it has been captured.
Haaretz reported, primarily based on inside paperwork it reviewed, that Toka’s instruments may entry and modify reside and recorded digital camera feeds with out leaving forensic traces. Concern in regards to the know-how is particularly related as public businesses more and more depend on related cameras, license-plate readers, and cloud-based investigative platforms. These techniques can transfer giant quantities of knowledge rapidly, however in addition they create extra alternatives for attackers or unauthorized customers to intrude with recorded proof.
At Black Hat, Forescout researchers demonstrated a associated danger by intercepting actual digital camera feeds and sending pre-recorded video to community video recorders. An operator may see what gave the impression to be a standard reside feed with out realizing that the footage had been changed.
Related considerations have emerged in body-camera techniques. POAM reporting described techniques that allowed footage to be downloaded, edited, and uploaded once more with out indicating that adjustments had been made. In every case, the underlying downside is similar: video could seem genuine whereas offering no dependable option to decide whether or not it has been altered.
The ACLU has warned that widespread digital camera deployments paired with susceptible infrastructure can create critical dangers. A breach can expose non-public footage, however it might additionally create alternatives for video to be manipulated or misused after the very fact.
For cities deploying Flock cameras and comparable techniques, the query is now not solely who can entry the video. It’s whether or not they can show that what a digital camera recorded is similar proof investigators, courts, and the general public are literally seeing.
