ICE Spent $14 Million on Phone Hacking

The $14+ Million Surveillance Shopping Spree

ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division wasn't subtle about their 2025 procurement:^[1][2]

Translation: everything on your phone becomes evidence.

What These Tools Can Extract

Modern phone forensics tools access more than you'd expect:

• Messages: SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal (in some cases), Telegram
• Photos and videos: Including deleted items still in device memory
• Location history: GPS logs, WiFi connections, cell tower data
• Apps and their data: Social media content, banking apps, dating profiles
• Contacts and call logs: Your entire network mapped
• Browsing history: Websites visited, searches made
• Passwords: In some cases, stored credentials
• Biometric data: Sometimes including enrolled fingerprints/faces

Cellebrite claims capability against even encrypted devices. While they can't break strong encryption directly, they exploit vulnerabilities in phone operating systems to bypass lock screens. ICE has also bought Paragon Graphite spyware that reaches encrypted messaging directly. What Apple calls "secure" isn't always secure against $10,000+ forensic devices.

Record Device Searches at Borders

CBP (the agency that processes people entering the US) searched 14,899 devices between April and June 2025 alone. That's the highest quarterly number on record.^[1]

The legal framework is murky:

• Border exception: Fourth Amendment protections are weakened at borders
• No warrant required: Unlike domestic police, CBP doesn't need probable cause for basic searches
• Forensic searches: Deeper searches (like Cellebrite extraction) may require "reasonable suspicion," but that standard is vague
• Refusal consequences: Citizens can refuse (with delays). Non-citizens face potential denial of entry.

If you're crossing a border with a phone, assume someone might access everything on it. That's the operational reality.

Who Gets Their Phone Searched?

Immigration enforcement is the primary use case. But the tools don't stay in that lane:

• People in immigration proceedings: Devices seized during arrests or detention
• Border crossers: Anyone entering the US can have devices inspected
• Associates of targets: Your phone might be searched because of who you know
• HSI investigations: Extends beyond immigration to broader federal crimes

Once ICE has Cellebrite and Graykey, they have them. The tools work on any phone, regardless of whose pocket it was in.

Who's Selling These Tools?

Cellebrite

Israeli digital intelligence company. Publicly traded. Sells to governments worldwide, including documented sales to authoritarian regimes. Their UFED devices are standard equipment for police and federal agencies globally.

Notable: the technology originated in intelligence and military applications.

Magnet Forensics (Graykey)

Magnet Forensics (Canadian) acquired the Graykey product line and now sells it to law enforcement.^[2]

Graykey specifically targets iPhone unlocking. When Apple patches vulnerabilities, Graykey finds new ones. It's an arms race, and law enforcement has deep pockets.

Protecting Your Device

The Legal Gray Zone

In 2014's Riley v. California, the Supreme Court ruled police need warrants to search phones. Clear victory for privacy.

In 2018's Carpenter v. United States, the Court extended that to historical cell location data. Another win.

But neither case definitively applies to borders. Courts have historically granted sweeping search powers at ports of entry under the "border search exception." Whether that exception covers deep forensic extraction of encrypted phones remains unsettled law.^[4]

ICE and CBP operate in this ambiguity. When the law is unclear, agencies push boundaries. These $14 million in contracts show which direction they're pushing.

The Bigger Picture

Your phone contains your entire life:

• Who you know (contacts)
• Where you've been (location history)
• What you believe (messages, browsing)
• What you do (apps, photos)
• Your health (fitness data, medical apps)
• Your finances (banking, crypto)

When ICE can extract all of this data, they're not just searching a device, they're searching your life. Every relationship. Every movement. Every thought you've typed.

The $14 million investment signals priorities. ICE isn't buying these tools to use sparingly. They're building infrastructure for mass digital surveillance.

And the tools keep improving. Every iOS update, Cellebrite and Graykey adapt. The record-breaking border searches in Q2 2025 are just the beginning.

Update (August 11, 2026)

Three developments since this article was first published.

The Magnet Forensics / Graykey contract this article described has been confirmed in the federal procurement database. TechCrunch reported on September 18, 2025 that HSI's $3 million software-license agreement appeared in SAM.gov on September 16, 2025, with no separate comment from ICE or Magnet Forensics at the time.^[6] That post sits alongside the original $11 million Cellebrite renewal covered above.

The Cellebrite footprint is expanding at the local-government level. On May 13, 2026, the Oakland City Council approved a $140,000 Cellebrite contract for the Oakland Police Department. The vendor was specifically identified as an Israeli company with documented ICE business; council discussion turned on the procurement pathway rather than a privacy-impact assessment.^[7] Local adoption matters because the same extraction tools move from federal to municipal evidence pipelines without changing capability.

Litigation continues. EPIC's FOIA-driven EPIC v. ICE (Mobile Forensics) matter, which targets the agency's procurement records and use policies for mobile forensic tools, remains an active docket entry.^[8] For a broader view, see our coverage of Paragon Graphite spyware deployed against ICE targets and the complete ICE surveillance arsenal.

References

1. EFF - ICE Going Surveillance Shopping Spree (2026)
2. News Interpretation - ICE Signs $3 Million Graykey Deal (2025)
3. PCMag - ICE Bought $35 Million in Cellebrite Technology (2019)
4. ACLU - Privacy at Borders and Checkpoints
5. Brennan Center - ICE Surveillance Toolkit Analysis
6. TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance: ICE unit signs $3 million contract for phone-hacking tech (September 18, 2025; SAM.gov posting dated September 16, 2025)
7. The Oaklandside: Oakland approves police contract with Israeli company that does business with ICE (May 13, 2026; $140,000 OPD Cellebrite award)
8. EPIC v. ICE (Mobile Forensics) docket

Related Coverage

• ICE Webloc: Warrantless Phone Tracking: Location surveillance without court orders
• ICE's Complete Surveillance Tech Stack: The full technology playbook
• Protect Biometric Data When Traveling: Border crossing privacy guide
• ICE Facial Recognition: Clearview AI and beyond
• IRIS C2's Zero-Day Exploit Shop: The new Virginia vendor shows how phone-hacking services are being pitched to US government buyers alongside forensic tools.
• Inside ICE's $8.5 Billion Surveillance Arsenal: Where the phone hacking budget fits