Russian authorities used forensic tools from the Israeli company Cellebrite to access the phone of Andrei Pivovarov in May 2021, according to an investigation by the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab research unit. This action took place two months after Cellebrite announced it would cease sales to Russia.

Russian authorities confiscated Mr. Pivovarov's iPhone 12 and MacBook in May 2021. They used Cellebrite UFED tools to extract data, including messages from WhatsApp and Viber, which was subsequently used in a criminal case against him. A document prepared by the Russian authorities during his prosecution confirmed the use of Cellebrite UFED for data extraction.

Mr. Pivovarov, the director of Open Russia, stated that the extraction of his phone data was a "violation of his privacy" that put many of his colleagues at risk. He said, "They tried to find my messages to other colleagues from my organisation and other politicians and may use these in criminal cases against them."

Cellebrite announced in March 2021 that it would no longer sell its solutions and services to customers in Russia. However, human rights lawyer Eitay Mack, whose investigative group found that Cellebrite's tools had been used against tens of thousands of individuals in Russia, including Alexei Navalny, said Cellebrite never dismantled the tools already sold to Russia. Mack said, "In contracts with American authorities, they, Cellebrite, keep the right to dismantle the equipment." He added, "But the fact is that their equipment is everywhere." Mack also stated that his investigations showed Cellebrite software could potentially still be used with expired licenses.

Mr. Pivovarov wrote an open letter to Cellebrite, stating: "The body of investigations that has been carried out demonstrates that the Russian Federation and other authoritarian states continue to operate your devices long after the formal termination of contracts." He also wrote: "I submit that your company ought to end the practice of effectively shielding clients who abuse your technology." The Citizen Lab has detected evidence of authorities in Kenya and Jordan using Cellebrite to monitor activists' phones. Cellebrite has ended contracts in Serbia, Russia, Belarus, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and China but has not ended contracts with Kenya or Jordan.

Cellebrite communicated in an email that its "technology is provided exclusively under licence and for legally authorised uses, there are no exceptions." The company also stated that "Any use of legacy Cellebrite hardware in Russia after March 2021 is entirely unauthorised." Cellebrite affirmed that hardware sold before March 2021 would be incompatible with modern devices and would operate without technical support. On its official website, Cellebrite claims it can disable devices or prevent them from receiving software updates as of March 2021. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, said, "If Cellebrite wants to stop equipping political prosecutions, the path is clear: stop selling to autocrats, remotely disable their tech after credible reports of abuse, and end the era of plausible deniability by implementing cryptographically signed watermarks on all imaged devices."