Cellebrite announced on Tuesday that it stopped Serbia from using its technology, following allegations that Serbian police and intelligence used Cellebrite’s technology to unlock the phones of a journalist and an activist, and then plant spyware.
In December 2024, Amnesty International published a report that accused Serbian police of using Cellebrite’s forensics tools to hack into the cellphones of a local journalist and an activist. Once their phones were unlocked, Serbian authorities then installed an Android spyware, which Amnesty called Novispy, to keep surveilling the two.
In a statement, Cellebrite said that “after a review of the allegations brought forth by the December 2024 Amnesty International report, Cellebrite took precise steps to investigate each claim in accordance with our ethics and integrity policies. We found it appropriate to stop the use of our products by the relevant customers at this time.”
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Cellebrite didn’t name the customer in this statement. However, in December, when it originally responded to Amnesty’s report, the company said it was aware of the nonprofit’s “findings on the use of surveillance technologies against civil society in Serbia.”
Cellebrite’s spokesperson Victor Cooper declined to comment when TechCrunch asked whether this is a permanent or temporary suspension, and whether there is anything the customer can do to be reinstated.
“Withdrawing licences from customers who misused the equipment for political reasons is a critical first step,” Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, the head of the Security Lab at Amnesty International, said in a statement. “Now, Serbian authorities must urgently conduct their own thorough and impartial investigations, hold those responsible to account, provide remedies to victims and establish adequate safeguards to prevent future abuse.”
