In 2021, Israeli police tech provider Cellebrite announced that it would no longer sell its technology, which can break into locked phones and quickly extract data, to Russia. At the time, it was facing a firestorm after the Russian government used its tech to raid the phone of Lyubov Sobol, a prominent opposition figure and Alexander Navalny ally, in late 2020.
But within months of the ban being enacted, Moscow investigators used Cellebrite technology to search the iPhone of Russian opposition politician Andrey Pivovarov, according to an analysis by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and records from Pivovarov’s legal team.
The evidence that Russia continued to use Cellebrite technology to target another prominent Russian activist, so soon after the Sobol case, indicates the company failed to shut down the Kremlin’s use of its data-extraction devices. It isn’t the first sign Cellebrite doesn’t have full control over its products; in 2022, Israeli publication Haaretz reported that the Kremlin’s investigators openly stated they used Cellebrite’s tools.
Cellebrite didn’t respond directly to Forbes enquiries. Instead, it copied in Forbes and other publications into an email from chief marketing officer David Gee to Citizen Lab and Access Now, a nonprofit that’s been supporting Pivovarov, in which he complained that the researchers didn’ not being given advance access to the report.
“Any use of legacy Cellebrite hardware in Russia after March 2021 is entirely unauthorized,” Gee wrote. “The Cellebrite hardware previously sold, prior to March 2021, would now be incompatible with modern devices and would operate without our technical support, our consent or any legal sanction from Cellebrite.” He said the company did not sell to countries sanctioned by the U.S., E.U., U.K. or Israel.
Cellebrite is publicly traded on the Nasdaq and recorded $128 million revenue in the first quarter of 2026. It’s been widely criticized for selling its technology to regimes with poor human rights records. In 2019, Cellebrite devices were used by Myanmar authorities to search the phones of Reuters journalists in the country. Amnesty International reported in 2024 that Serbian authorities used Cellebrite tech to access the device of an investigative journalist and a student protester. Cellebrite later said it ceased sales in both Myanmar and Serbia.
Cellebrite is also the biggest cellphone forensics provider to the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which has come under fire for its aggressive crackdown on undocumented residents under the Trump administration. In September last year, it scored its biggest ICE order to date, in an $11.1 million deal.
In 2021, Pivovarov was arrested in Russia for running an “undesirable” organization, pro-democracy nonprofit Open Russia, and imprisoned until 2024, when he was released as part of a historic prisoner swap between East and West. Russian authorities had possession of his phone between 2021 and 2023, when it was returned to his lawyers.
Now living in Germany, Pivavrov tells Forbes he’s surprised the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which regulates foreign shipments of its technology, allowed the shipment of Cellebrite to Russia for use on dissidents. “It’s really sad that a state which fights for freedom helps the dictatorship regime in Russia, who supports Iran,” he says. “Israel is helping this regime to pressure the people who fight for freedom in Russia.”
Citizen Lab researchers’ analysis of Pivavrov’s iPhone 12 found that in June 2021, it had connected via USB to a Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), Cellebrite’s flagship mobile data extraction tool. As Pivavrov didn’t give the agents his passcode, it’s likely Russian investigators used the UFED to break into the phone. Citizen Lab said the agents then searched for specific contacts, including coworkers at Open Russia, where Pivavrov was director. Some of those contacts were later targeted in a cyber surveillance operation linked to the FSB, in which the hackers attempted to get access to targets’ online accounts via phishing messages, the researchers said.
Eitay Mack, an Israeli lawyer who has petitioned the Israeli government to enforce controls over shipments of surveillance technology, believes Cellebrite has the capability to remotely prevent devices from operating. But the efficacy of that killswitch is unclear. In filings with the SEC, Cellebrite says it can both terminate a license or “disable the use of the software,” when it deems a customer has violated its terms of service. It’s possible, Mack notes, that this may just mean that Cellebrite would bar a prohibited customer from receiving software updates. But in theory they could continue to use Cellebrite tools without getting updates, meaning it wouldn’t be compatible with updated mobile devices, but could still work on older models.
“Rapid technology advances render legacy digital forensic hardware and software ineffective within a short period of time. Russia remains permanently on our restricted-customer list,” Gee wrote in his letter.
Mack says it’s not surprising that Russia continued to use Cellebrite tech on dissidents because it’s simple to operate in protest scenarios, quickly hooking up a phone to extract contacts and messages of anti-regime networks. “They could detain a leader of a protest, get his phone, and then reveal his network and arrest all the others,” he warns.
Access Now, a human rights nonprofit that’s been supporting Pivovarov, has sent a letter to Cellebrite, in which it called on the company’s executives to “implement both legal and technical measures to prevent future abuses,” including the addition of a killswitch to turn devices off in countries that breach its terms. Citizen Lab’s John Scott-Railton also warned about Cellebrite’s new AI agent Genesis, which can quickly analyze police data and mobile phone extractions to generate investigative leads for cops. That’s “exactly the kind of turnkey feature an autocrat will use to map opposition networks and identify fresh targets for suspicion and repression.”
Though Pivovarov was set free in 2024, he expects Russia will file another criminal case against him. He does not foresee a return to his homeland. “I have no chance to be free in Russia.”
