Israeli digital intelligence company specializing in mobile device forensic extraction tools (UFED). Used by law enforcement worldwide but criticized for sales to authoritarian regimes and use against journalists and activists.
A January 2026 Citizen Lab report found Cellebrite equipment was used in at least seven cases to extract data from phones seized from activists and a journalist detained during pro-Palestinian protests in Jordan between late 2023 and mid-2025. None of the individuals consented to the searches. All four devices forensically analyzed showed Cellebrite product use in 2024-2025.
Between 2008 and April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded Cellebrite at least 213 contracts worth over $48.6 million for UFED phone extraction technology. A new $11 million contract was signed in 2025. CBP uses Cellebrite to perform warrantless searches at the border. The ACLU filed suit in 2017 claiming searches violated First and Fourth Amendment rights.
Amnesty International documented Serbian authorities using Cellebrite tools alongside spyware to target journalists and activists. A student activist's phone was hacked using a Cellebrite zero-day exploit (CVE-2024-53104) affecting millions of Android devices. Cellebrite only suspended sales to Serbia's security services in February 2025 after the public Amnesty report—despite ongoing abuse documented since 2024.
Cellebrite publicly stated it had been 'instrumental' in providing phone hacking services to Israeli intelligence agencies since October 7, 2023. The company's tools were used to harvest data from phones of thousands of Palestinians captured from Gaza—the Israeli military later admitted the vast majority were civilians. Cellebrite also received Pentagon funding in 2024 to develop products to map Hamas operatives and Gaza tunnels.