Cellebrite, the Israeli company that makes tech to siphon data off of iPhones and Android phones, is big with the U.S. government. Like, the U.S. Government is a big customer. 9 to 5 Mac highlights a report from The Intercept. That has Cellebrite saying in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it has more than 2,800 customers in the U.S. government. The piece quotes the The Intercept, saying:
Cellebrite securities documents reviewed by The Intercept show that all but one of the 15 U.S. Cabinet departments, along with several other federal agencies, have acquired Cellebrite products in recent years. The list includes many that would seem far removed from intelligence collection or law enforcement, like the departments of Agriculture, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development; the Social Security Administration; the U.S. Agency for International Development; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention […]
Oh. And police departments. It looks like lots of police departments are Cellebrite customers, according to the report.
On the one hand, Cellebrite is less dangerous than NSO Group’s Pegasus, in 9 to 5 Mac’s estimation. That’s because for Cellebrite to work, the entity working it has to have access to the physical phone. But, the piece says:
…the highly intrusive tool is reportedly cheap enough to be routinely used to check the phones of travelers at immigration checkpoints, and suspects in crimes as trivial as shoplifting and being drunk in public, raising obvious privacy and civil liberties concerns.
Plus, they’re better than a bake sale. You can find a ton of used Cellebrite units on eBay. I wish I was kidding.
