Cellebrite NSW surveillance state
Proposed laws in New South Wales would let police access phone data without a warrant using Cellebrite, an Israeli digital forensics platform founded by former Israeli intelligence operatives. This tool can crack locked phones to extract photos, messages, location history, and deleted items. Under the new rules, extracted data could be kept indefinitely with no deletion requirement, and refusing to hand over a phone could carry serious prison time. NSW Police told a parliamentary inquiry they had not used Cellebrite for surveillance, yet records show Cellebrite tools have scanned more than 30,000 phones since 2022. The issue extends federally where agencies including Defence, the Tax Office, and the AFP hold more than 128 contracts with Cellebrite worth over $15 million. Records also show Services Australia and the Sport Integrity Agency are involved. Senator David Shoebridge states Cellebrite has sold its tech to Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China. He notes the technology has been used to crack down on journalists in Myanmar and to extract data from Palestinians' phones. The situation is characterized as a surveillance state created by state and federal Labor governments. There is a call for an urgent nationwide audit of contracts with Cellebrite and Palantir. #Australia #SaudiArabia
النص (en)
The company that just got the power to search any mobile phone in New South Wales without a warrant is an Israeli high-tech spy company. It's called Celebrite and it was founded by former Israeli intelligence operatives. This software can crack a locked phone. It can pull everything off it. Your photos, your messages, your location history. It can even recover things you've deleted. And New South Wales police have just been given the ability to use it when they stop you at a roadside stop without any oversight by a judge. Under these new New South Wales laws, once your data is extracted by the police, there's no requirement on them to delete it. And it's not just a New South Wales issue. My office has been looking at the impact at a federal law, and there are more than 128 instances valued at over $15 million of federal agencies, police and others engaging with Celebrite too. We're talking defence, the Australian Federal Police, the Tax Office, Services Australia, even the Sport Integrity Agency. This is a company that's worked its way into pretty much every part of the Commonwealth Government. Celebrite has sold this same tech to Saudi Arabia, to Russia, to China. This tech has been used by the government in Myanmar to crack down on dissidents and journalists. And it's the same tech the Israeli government has used to extract data from Palestinians' phones in the ongoing oppression and genocide there. The surveillance state being created by state and federal Labor governments should worry us all. We need an urgent nationwide audit of the contracts of the likes of Celebrite and Palantir, and then we need to drive them out of our governments.
