Researchers have found forensic evidence suggesting that Kenyan authorities used Cellebrite’s phone-cracking technology on the device of a prominent human rights activist after arresting him, according to a report published Tuesday.

The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said the intrusion is a sign of growing abuse of Cellebrite’s technology. According to the report, after his widely criticized  arrest in July amid mass protest, Boniface Mwangi noticed that his personal phone no longer required a password to access. The government initially suggested it might pursue  terrorism charges, but  later backed away from that and instead filed lesser offenses.

After the incident, Mwangi gave his phone to Citizen Lab for forensic analysis. The group said it found evidence of Cellebrite’s use, potentially to extract data from his device.

Mwangi told CyberScoop he felt a “very strong feeling of violation” after that, as his phone contained family photos, conversations with loved ones and even his plans for running for president, a bid he announced in August.

“I’ve been shot, I’ve been jailed, I’ve been tortured, I’ve been assaulted in many, many ways,” he continued. “So this is more emotional than physical, because I feel like someone was in your private thoughts — the things that you think, that you think should never be public.”

Citizen Lab said the incident showed that Cellebrite’s claims of safeguards against abuse via an ethics committee aren’t sufficient.

“Boniface Mwangi’s case wasn’t the first Cellebrite abuse case, and it won’t be the last, because Cellebrite has a global abuse problem,” John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at the organization, told CyberScoop. “When Cellebrite sells their technology to a security service with a track record of abuses, journalists, activists, and people speaking their conscience are at risk. It’s time for Cellebrite to take action and prove that their ethics committee isn’t a Potemkin village and their vetting procedures aren’t just empty platitudes.”

The U.S. government, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, also uses Cellebrite’s products and services.

Citizen Lab sent Cellebrite a list of questions, but the company did not respond to them. Cellebrite did, however,  defend its approach in a response to CyberScoop.

“Cellebrite maintains a rigorous process for reviewing allegations of technology misuse,” said Victor Cooper, a company spokesperson. “When credible, substantiated evidence is presented directly to our team, we investigate thoroughly and take decisive action, up to and including license termination.

“We do not respond to speculation and encourage any organization with specific, evidence-based concerns to share them with us directly so we can act on them,” he continued.

“Cellebrite operates under stringent compliance and ethics frameworks. We stand behind our vetting processes, our Ethics & Integrity Committee and our record of enforcement.”

Neither a spokesperson for the Kenyan government nor the Kenyan embassy in Washington, D.C. answered requests for comment Monday.

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Jordanian authorities used Cellebrite phone-cracking technology to access the devices of domestic activists and human rights defenders and then extract information from them, according to an investigation published Thursday.

The nonconsensual access stood in conflict with international human rights treaties that Jordan ratified, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab investigation determined, prompting the research organization to call on Cellebrite to open a probe into clients in Jordan.

Citizen Lab, which released its investigation in coordination with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), analyzed the phones of four activists after Jordanian authorities seized and returned them, then concluded with “high confidence” that the  devices had been subjected to Cellebrite’s forensic extraction products. Court documents from criminal proceedings under Jordan’s 2023 Cybercrime Law supplied additional evidence.

The cases Citizen Lab evaluated transpired between late 2023 and mid-2025, during a time of protests in support of Palestinians. They involved a political activist, student organizer, activist/researcher and human rights defender, three of whom had iPhones and the other of whom had an Android device.

The Citizen Lab probe adds to a body of reporting about alleged Cellebrite abuses. Last year, Amnesty International reported that Serbian authorities had used Cellebrite in conjunction with spyware to eavesdrop on activists and journalists, the latter category of whom have reportedly had their phones accessed in a number of countries via Cellebrite tech.

Citizen Lab further concluded that products by the Israel-based Cellebrite are widely used against civil society in Jordan, with forensic data showing its use dating back to at least 2020.

“Surveillance is not limited to spyware,” said the lead author of the report, Kamel Al-Shawareb, a pseudonymous research fellow at Citizen Lab. “Authoritarian states access smartphone data remotely with spyware like Pegasus or by physically seizing a device and using Cellebrite to access the contents.”

Activists whose phones Citizen Lab examined said it shook their confidence and had them resorting to self-censorship.

“I felt wronged and violated, like they stole something from me, and not because they’re strong, but because we’re legally weak,” one of the people told the OCCRP on condition of anonymity. 

Victor Cooper, a spokesperson for Cellebrite, said that the company can’t disclose specific information on its customers. But he said it prohibits transactions with any entities on the sanctions list of the United States and other nations and organizations. 

“Beyond these baselines, the company vets potential customers against internal human rights parameters, leading us to historically cease business in jurisdictions where risks were deemed incompatible with our corporate values,” he said in an email to CyberScoop. “We license technology solely for lawful purposes, requiring customers to explicitly certify they possess valid legal authority prior to usage.”

He said that Cellebrite tech, unlike spyware, can’t intercept communications or monitor devices in real time, but rather can access private data under legal processes to aid investigations after something has occurred.

“We take seriously all allegations of potential misuse of our technology in ways that would run counter to both explicit and implied conditions outlined in our end-user agreement,” Cooper said. “ Once solid information is shared with Cellebrite, we review the allegations and take proactive precise steps to investigate each claim in accordance with our ethics and integrity policies. When appropriate we stop the use of our products by the relevant customers. ”

Citizen Lab said Cellebrite’s responses to its questions as part of the investigation were “vague and unsubstantiated.”

Jordan’s Ministry of Government Affairs and its embassy in the United States did not respond to requests for comment.

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