Kenyan Activist’s Phone Exposed to Forensic Tool During Custody, Citizen Lab Finds

Citizen Lab found evidence that Cellebrite’s forensic extraction tool was used on Boniface Mwangi’s Samsung phone while in Kenyan police custody in July 2025, potentially enabling full data extraction. The device was returned unlocked, fueling concerns about government misuse of surveillance tech and echoing prior Predator spyware incidents targeting activists, including an Angolan journalist, as researchers document a pattern of highly capable, carefully deployed spyware against civil society.