By Jay Heisler, Freelance Canadian Jounalist
Biography: AJ Iafrate (LinkedIn Profile) leads Law Enforcement & Government Relations for Kodex across the United States and Canada. He spent a decade in law enforcement, including several years as an investigator, before spending three years building TikTok’s Law Enforcement Outreach program. At Kodex, he works as the bridge between law enforcement and industry, helping investigators get the data they need faster.
Can you say a bit about your former career with TikTok?
I spent three years building TikTok’s Law Enforcement Outreach program from scratch, as their first ever Law Enforcement Outreach Lead. That job put me on the other side of the table – deciding how a platform responds when police come knocking – after years of being the one asking.
Can you say a bit about the rest of your career?
Before that I spent about a decade in law enforcement, seven years as a Sergeant before moving into my agency’s Investigations Unit, where I was lead investigator on a lot of our team’s high-profile cases. I also drafted the legal process we used, production orders, search warrants, etc – so I know firsthand what it’s like waiting on a company that won’t answer. Now I lead Law Enforcement and Government Relations for Kodex across the US and Canada. I’ve been the investigator, I’ve been the platform, now I’m the bridge between the two.
Can you say a bit about your experience with OSINT?
Most of my OSINT background comes from casework – using open source tools to build out leads, verify identities, and move investigations forward, both as an investigator and later helping platforms understand what law enforcement actually needs. A lot of what I teach in Kodex training touches on OSINT, especially around spotting things like compromised law enforcement email accounts and fake legal process.
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