- Kenyan authorities used Cellebrite technology to break into a dissident’s phone in July 2025, according to new research.
- An Angolan journalist’s iPhone was successfully infected with Intellexa‘s Predator spyware in May 2024, a report from Amnesty International has revealed.
- This forms a pattern of similar Cellebrite misuse in Jordan, targeting activists critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
In February 2026, researchers exposed how law enforcement in Kenya used Israeli-made forensic tools from Cellebrite to extract data from the phone of presidential hopeful Boniface Mwangi after his July 2025 arrest. This incident marks another case of governments deploying commercial spyware against civil society figures. The Citizen Lab found the phone was returned without a password, indicating a full data extraction occurred.
Consequently, sensitive messages, financial details, and personal files were potentially exposed. “The use of Cellebrite could have enabled the full extraction of all materials from Mwangi’s device,” the Citizen Lab stated in its findings. This follows a separate report about Jordan using the same technology on pro-Palestinian activists.
Meanwhile, a separate investigation uncovered the use of Predator spyware against an Angolan journalist in May 2024. After opening a malicious WhatsApp link, Teixeira Cândido’s iPhone was compromised, granting attackers unrestricted access. Amnesty International’s analysis shows this is the first confirmed case of Predator targeting civil society in Angola.
Therefore, eleven subsequent re-infection attempts failed only because the journalist did not open new malicious links. A Cellebrite spokesperson defended the technology, telling The Guardian it is used “only in accordance with legal due process.” Together, these cases highlight a worrying global ecosystem of surveillance abuse.
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