Serbian Authorities Allegedly Used AI-Powered Cellebrite Tools to Unlock Journalist’s Phone and Install Spyware
December 16, 2024
Serbian authorities allegedly used Cellebrite’s AI-powered forensic tools to unlock journalists’ and activists’ phones without consent. They reportedly then installed NoviSpy, a newly discovered spyware. That then purportedly allowed covert data extraction, remote microphone and camera activation, and surveillance. Amnesty International uncovered forensic evidence linking Serbia’s Security Information Agency (BIA) to these attacks. Cellebrite halted sales to Serbia after the report.
- Alleged deployer
- serbian-security-information-agency-(bia), serbian-police, government-of-serbia
- Alleged developer
- serbian-security-information-agency-(bia), cellebrite
- Alleged harmed parties
- slavisa-milanov, nikola-ristic, krokodil, journalists-in-serbia, human-rights-defenders-in-serbia, environmental-activists-in-serbia, dissidents-in-serbia, civil-society-organizations-in-serbia
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/961
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
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