From NIA to Delhi Police: Why Israeli Cellebrite phone extraction software is drawing scrutiny

YouTuber Dhruv Rathee says that he believes the Delhi Police tried to clone his iPhone with Israeli forensic software but failed because his phone ran an iOS version older than the tool could handle. Speaking on a podcast with Comedian Kunal Kamra, Rathee said that they used Cellebrite.

On October 10, Delhi Police detained him, just hours ahead of the Cockroach Janta Party protest. They held him till the next morning. His and his parents' phones were confiscated. It's not just Rathee; scores of the other demonstrators and activists have seen their devices being confiscated.

After getting his phone back, Rathee says technical experts examined it for a full day and found no spyware. He points to battery history showing the phone on charge for hours in police custody, which he reads as a sign it was connected to a computer. Though a battery log alone cannot prove data was extracted. Rathee's accounts have not been independently verified, and the Delhi police have not reacted to his remarks publicly, according to Internet Freedom Foundation.

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The tool Cellebrite, which Rathee mentioned, is being bought widely. On November 7, IFF published a report which claimed that a Home Ministry letter dated January 20 records Home Minister Amit Shah approving the National Investigation Agency's purchase of Cellebrite's most advanced product. The approval waived Make in India rules, and the contract was awarded for about ₹4.98 crore. IFF has not seen the Minister's note itself and has filed an RTI request for it.

IFF counts 15 Cellebrite listings across 11 tenders in 2026. Buyers include the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, the Department of Military Affairs, and the Kerala, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh governments. The Home Ministry cleared three Cellebrite products for the Delhi Police Crime Branch in March 2025, and the force has reportedly held Cellebrite tools since at least 2020.

“As no other Company is manufacturing the software with the same name and specifications”, read the NIA record of the bid, as quoted by the IFF report. Its Proprietary Article Certificate, issued under Rule 166 of the General Financial Rules and naming M/s Cellebrite DI Ltd. of Petah Tikva, Israel, as the sole developer and proprietor, adds that “No other make or model is acceptable.”

Human rights groups have noted that Israeli military and security forces have extensively used Cellebrite software to bypass security protocols and harvest private data from the smartphones of thousands of detained Palestinians across Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

IFF argues that no Indian law says when a seized phone can be unlocked, what can be copied, how long the data can be kept or who can see it. It says the closest provision, Section 69 of the IT Act, is under challenge in a Supreme Court petition it filed in 2019. It adds that guidelines on seizing digital devices, which the Centre said in 2023 it would frame, have not been placed before the Court.
The group is asking Delhi Police and the Home Ministry to say whether any phones taken during the protests, including Rathee's, were connected to an extraction tool. It also wants seized devices returned and data deleted for people not charged with any offence.