Cellebrite, a surveillance firm marketing itself as the “global leader in digital intelligence”, is marketing its digital extraction devices at a new target: authorities interrogating people seeking asylum. 

Israel-based Cellebrite, a subsidiary of Japan’s Sun Corporation, markets forensic tools which empower authorities to bypass passwords on digital devices, allowing them to download, analyse, and visualise data...

The potential use of its product to investigate the digital lives of people seeking asylum was outlined by its VP of International Marketing in a pitch last month in Morocco to government officials gathered from around the world. 

According to Cellebrite’s salesperson, some “77% of refugees [sic] arrive without document”, while 43% have a smartphone during their journey – insisting that in lieu of documents, a person’s phone could be used to find out who they are, what they have been doing, where they have been, when, and ultimately why they are seeking asylum...