The company is also offering a version of its product line for use by healthcare workers to trace the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, but the tools can only be used with patient consent and can’t hack phones, she said.Ĭellebrite’s marketing overtures are part of a wave of efforts by at least eight surveillance and cyber-intelligence companies attempting to sell repurposed spy and law enforcement tools to track the virus and enforce quarantines, according to interviews with executives and non-public company promotional materials reviewed by Reuters.įor a graphic on Tracing COVID-19, click tmsnrt.rs/3f00GRK “We do not need the phone passcode to collect the data,” the salesman wrote to a senior officer in an April 22 email reviewed by Reuters.Ī Cellebrite spokeswoman said the salesman was offering the same tools the company has long sold to help police enforce the law. But in legally justified cases, such as when a patient violates a law against public gatherings, police could use the tools to break into a confiscated device, Cellebrite advised.

This would usually be done with consent, the email said. When someone tests positive, authorities can siphon up the patient’s location data and contacts, making it easy to “quarantine the right people,” according to a Cellebrite email pitch to the Delhi police force this month. Now, as governments fight the spread of COVID-19, Cellebrite is pitching the same capability to help authorities learn who a coronavirus sufferer may have infected.

Police officers monitor traffic on the streets from surveillance camera footages as Argentine President Alberto Fernandez announced an extension of the lockdown it has imposed as a measure to control the spread of coronavirus, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 10, 2020.

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