"From Protest to Peril-Cellebrite Used Against Jordanian Civil Society" 22 January 2026

Through a multi-year investigation, we find that the Jordanian security apparatus has deployed forensic extraction products manufactured by Cellebrite against civil society devices. We release these findings alongside reporting from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) which includes interviews with a few of the victims...

Key Findings:

• Cellebrite’s products have been used by the Jordanian authorities to extract data from the phones of activists and civil society members without their consent.
• During our forensic investigation of devices that were seized by authorities and returned to their owners, we uncovered iOS and Android Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) that we attribute with high confidence to Cellebrite’s forensic extraction products.
• Court records shared with the Citizen Lab indicate use of Cellebrite products in criminal prosecutions against activists and members of Jordanian civil society in a manner that does not comply with human rights treaties that Jordan has ratified (“abuse”).
• We present seven individual cases in this report. The Citizen Lab is aware of dozens of other cases in the country involving civil society. Forensic records obtained in previous testing rounds suggest authorities have been using Cellebrite since at least 2020.

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The Citizen Lab contacted Cellebrite to provide them with an opportunity to comment on our findings. Steven George-Hilley, the CEO of Centropy Public Relations, responded to our email with the following statement:“…A Cellebrite Spokesperson said:“Ethical and lawful use of our technology is paramount to our mission of protecting nations, communities and businesses around the world...As a global provider of digital investigation technologies, adherence to the rule of law and privacy standards are fundamental elements of all our relationships. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on specifics...Our commitment to transparency is underlined by the fact we have a publicly declared independent Ethics & Integrity Committee, which is comprised of many external industry specialists.”We note that this response does not deny any of our findings, nor does it explain whether Cellebrite’s Ethics & Integrity Committee will take up this matter...