CBP Wants New Tech to Search for Hidden Data on Seized Phones
United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) asks technological companies to present digital legal tools in legal medicine that are designed to process and analyze text messages, images, videos and contacts from seized phones, laptops and other devices on the American border, according to documents examined by Wired.
The agency declared in a list of the federal register that the tools he is looking for must have very specific capacities, such as the possibility of finding a “hidden language” in the text messages of a person; Identify specific objects, “like a red tricycle”, on different videos; Access cats in encrypted messaging applications; And “find models” in large sets of data for the “generation of Intel”. The list was published for the first time on June 20 and updated on July 1.
CBP uses Celled to extract and analyze devices from the devices since 2008. But the agency said it wanted to “develop” and modernize its digital legal medicine program. Last year, said CBP, he looked for more than 47,000 electronic devices, which is slightly higher than around 41,500 aircraft he sought in 2023 but a spectacular increase compared to 2015, when he sought just over 8,500 aircraft.
The so-called information request (RFI) comes in the middle of a series of CBP reports holding people entering the United States, sometimes questioning them on their travel plans or their political convictions, and sometimes collect and search for their phones. In a high -level incident in March, a Lebanese professor at the Brown University Faculty of Medicine was sent back to Lebanon after the authorities searched her phone and alleged that she was “sympathetic” to the former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was murdered in September 2024.
In the RFI, CBP said that the Digital Legal Medicine Supplier that he chose would sign a contract in the third quarter of an exercise from 2026, which takes place from April to June. CBP has eight active contracts for software, licenses, equipment and training of Cellebrite – more than $ 1.3 million in total – which will end between July 2025 and April 2026. CBP seems to use tools other than this one. The agency has declared in the recent list that it uses “a wide variety of digital data extraction tools”, but it does not name these tools.
CBP did not respond to requests for comments. The spokesman for Celbite, Victor Cooper, told Wired that the company is “unable to comment on active requests for information proposals”.
Three lists of federal contracts mention that CBP pays for the universal medical-legal extraction device of Celbite 4PC, software designed to analyze data on the PC or the existing laptop of a user. The list of “renewal of licenses” does not mention a specific product but can refer to the digital investigation intelligence platform, which is the “end-to-end” suite of this data analysis tools.
On the Intelligence platform of Celbite, users have a wide range of capabilities. It can sort the images according to their content certain elements, such as jewelry, handwriting or documents. He can also go through text messages, as well as direct messages on applications like Tiktok, and filter the messages that mention certain subjects, such as the obstruction of evidence, the family or the police. Users can also unveil photos “hidden” by a device owner, create social cards from friends and contacts and trace the locations where a person has sent SMS.
