Russia Breaks Into Human Rights Activist's Phone With Cellebrite - The Citizen Lab

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Contents

Key Findings

Andrey Pivovarov's Arrest and Sentencing

Russian Authorities Access Pivovarov's iPhone With Cellebrite

Official Documents Confirm Cellebrite Use

Authorities Appear to Fail to Access Pivovarov's MacBook

Cellebrite: A Growing History of Abuses

Conclusion: Forensic Tools Are a Key Instrument of Repression

Recommendations to Cellebrite

Recommendations for Civil Society

Key Findings

Our forensic analysis shows that Russian authorities deployed Cellebrite’s UFED to breach the phone of activist Andrey Pivovarov in a political prosecution.

Russian authorities’ own documents confirm our findings, and show they used Cellebrite to extract and hunt for information about his political activity and personal life.

Russian authorities continued to use Cellebrite for political repression despite Cellebrite’s cancellation of Russian contracts.

Andrey Pivovarov’s Arrest and Sentencing

On May 31, 2021, prominent Russian political activist Andrey Pivovarov was removed from a flight and detained by the Russian security services at St. Petersburg Airport. For a brief period after the detention, Pivovarov was able to keep his devices and contact a lawyer. However, when an investigator began to question him, his devices, including an iPhone 12 and an Apple MacBook, were confiscated. He never gave Russian authorities consent to search his devices, and did not provide them with his passwords. His devices remained in official custody until 2023.

Pivovarov had served as the director of the Russia-based non-profit Open Russia. The UK and US Open Russia entities were designated "undesirable" by the Russian authorities in April 2017, under a law which the European Court of Human Rights later found to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Pivovarov dissolved the Russian branch of Open Russia on May 27, 2021, stating the desire to protect staff from criminal prosecution following amendments to Russia’s law on undesirable organizations.

After his arrest, an investigation was undertaken by Russia’s Investigative Committee. In July 2022, Russian authorities sentenced Pivovarov to four years in prison on charges of carrying out the activities of an "undesirable" organization. These charges are widely viewed as politically motivated.

On August 1, 2024 he was freed as part of a prisoner exchange.

Russian Authorities Access Pivovarov’s iPhone With Cellebrite

In 2023, while still imprisoned, Pivovarov’s devices were returned to his lawyer by the Russian authorities. He regained possession of them upon his release. In fall 2025, Pivovarov made contact with researchers from the Citizen Lab at the World Liberty Congress in Berlin, Germany. An initial screen of his iPhone showed signs of Cellebrite’s forensic tools, and a detailed forensic analysis was then conducted on artefacts from the device.

Our analysis found traces of the use of Cellebrite’s forensic tools with high confidence on Pivovarov’s iPhone 12 on or around June 17, 2021, during a period when the device was in the custody of the Russian authorities.

Our forensic analysis of MobileLockdown records from Pivovarov’s iPhone show USB connections to a device with a Host ID on June 17, 2021 that we previously attributed to Cellebrite.

The Cellebrite HostID Found on Pivovarov’s Device

Host ID 9016926980658937761372207Host ID 9016926980658937761372207

Cellebrite DI Ltd. (or Cellebrite) is an Israeli technology company specializing in the sale of data extraction and forensic analysis tools to law enforcement agencies and commercial customers. Their Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) product series enables customers to extract all of a device’s data. Cellebrite also provides technology to governments for non-consensual device extraction, including password bypassing and cracking.

Official Documents Confirm Cellebrite Use

Our forensic analysis is directly confirmed by a document prepared by the Russian authorities themselves. Commissioned by Russia’s Forensic Expert Center of the Russian Ministry of the Interior (MVD), the document was given to Pivovarov in the course of his criminal prosecution. Pivovarov provided the Citizen Lab with a copy of the report, titled “ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ ЭКСПЕРТА Nº 1269-17” (English “Forensic Expert Report No. 1269-17”).

The official report explicitly confirms the use of Cellebrite’s UFED Physical Analyzer and the UFED 4PC toolkit. According to 2021 promotional materials, these tools allow law enforcement to extract data from "the broadest...