"Cellebrite asks cops to keep its phone hacking tech ‘hush hush’", 19 August 2023

For years, cops and other government authorities all over the world have been using phone hacking technology provided by Cellebrite to unlock phones and obtain the data within...As part of the deal with government agencies, Cellebrite asks users to keep its tech — and the fact that they used it — secret, TechCrunch has learned. This request concerns legal experts who argue that powerful technology like the one Cellebrite builds and sells, and how it gets used by law enforcement agencies, ought to be public and scrutinized.

In a leaked training video for law enforcement customers that was obtained by TechCrunch, a senior Cellebrite employee tells customers that “ultimately, you’ve extracted the data, it’s the data that solves the crime, how you got in, let’s try to keep that as hush hush as possible.”..

...For legal experts, this kind of request is troubling because authorities need to be transparent in order for a judge to authorize searches, or to authorize the use of certain data and evidence in court. Secrecy, the experts argue, hurts the rights of defendants, and ultimately the rights of the public...

...Cellebrite spokesperson Victor Cooper said in an email to TechCrunch that the company “is committed to support ethical law enforcement. Our tools are designed for lawful use, with the utmost respect for the chain of custody and judicial process.”

“We do not advise our customers to act in contravention with any law, legal requirements or other forensics standards,” the spokesperson said. “While we continue protecting and expect users of our tools to respect our trade secrets and other proprietary and confidential information, we also permanently continue developing our training and other published materials for the purpose of identifying statements which could be improperly interpreted by listeners, and in this respect, we thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

When asked whether Cellebrite would change the content of its training, the spokesperson did not respond...