Russian authorities used phone-hacking technology made by Israeli forensics firm Cellebrite to break into the iPhone of opposition politician Andrey Pivovarov while he was in custody — more than three months after Cellebrite had announced it was cutting off all sales to Russia, according to a report published in June 2026 by digital rights researchers at The Citizen Lab.
Cellebrite had publicly stated in March 2021 that it would “immediately” stop selling its technology to Russian government customers and terminate existing licenses. Despite that announcement, researchers at The Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto, found forensic evidence that a Russian government investigative unit used Cellebrite’s phone-unlocking device, known as UFED, to access Pivovarov’s iPhone 12 in June 2021. A court document shared by Pivovarov confirmed that Russian authorities extracted WhatsApp and Telegram messages from his device and searched it for political terms and the names of opposition figures.
Pivovarov, director of the now-defunct opposition group Open Russia, was later sentenced to four years in prison before being released in August 2024 as part of a prisoner exchange that also freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
Cellebrite’s chief marketing officer David Gee stated that “any use of legacy Cellebrite hardware in Russia after March 2021 is entirely unauthorized.” The company did not respond to specific follow-up questions.
The case highlights a broader problem with surveillance technology: once tools reach a customer, recalling them is difficult. Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack, who has campaigned against surveillance tech makers, noted that Cellebrite has not publicly stated whether it requires former customers to dismantle its devices. Senior Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton said Cellebrite should build in the ability to remotely disable its tools when misuse is reported, and add cryptographic watermarks to trace which device was used in any given extraction.
Cellebrite has previously cut ties with Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and Serbia following documented abuses of its technology against dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists.
Source: TechCrunch