A recent report published on 16 December 2024 by Amnesty International (https://www.amnesty.org/en/) has revealed the alleged systemic use of spyware and digital surveillance technologies against activists, journalists, and members of civil society by Serbian security agencies and law enforcement. The findings point to the alleged abuse of invasive tools, including a new spyware dubbed NoviSpy, in combination with forensic extraction technologies.
You can read the Amnesty International article here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur70/8813/2024/en/
The ordeal for activists from the literary and civil rights organization KROKODIL (https://www.krokodil.rs/) began on 20 September 2024 when a group of men entered their offices, forcibly removed a Ukrainian flag, and issued threats. The intruders reportedly spoke Russian and wore t-shirts bearing the likeness of convicted Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladić. Following this incident, a representative from KROKODIL contacted Serbia’s Security Intelligence Agency (Bezbednosno Informativna Agencija – BIA) to report the attack and seek protection.
During the subsequent meeting with BIA in October 2024, the activist was asked to unlock the phone under the pretext of ensuring the conversation wasn’t being recorded. After leaving the device unattended in another room, the activist noticed an unusual notification stating that the contact list had been copied. Amnesty International’s forensic analysis later confirmed that NoviSpy had been installed on the device.
According to Amnesty’s report, NoviSpy is a sophisticated spyware developed to infect devices and collect sensitive data, such as contact lists and screenshots taken every few seconds. These data are then uploaded to a server allegedly connected to the BIA. This spyware has been in use since late 2023 and has become a tool for suppressing dissent.
The use of NoviSpy is not an isolated case. Amnesty International documented similar instances involving Nikola Ristić, a member of the activist group Sviće (https://svice.rs/), Ivan Bjelić, an activist from the initiative Marš sa Drine (https://marssadrine.org/en/), Slaviša Milanov, a journalist from Dimitrovgrad, Serbia, Ivan Milosavljević (Buki), an environmental activist. All these individuals reported that their phones were tampered with during detentions or so-called “informative meetings” with law enforcement or BIA.
The report highlights the misuse of Cellebrite’s digital forensic tools, which were originally provided to Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministarstvo Unutrašnjih Poslova – MUP) as part of international aid programs. Cellebrite’s UFED (Universal Forensic Extraction Device), donated to Serbia 2019, was intended for criminal investigations but has been weaponized against civil society.
Both BIA and MUP have denied the allegations. In statements, BIA dismissed the report as “nonsensical,” accusing Amnesty International of working on behalf of “foreign interests.” MUP insisted that Cellebrite technology is used strictly in compliance with Serbian criminal procedure laws.
Local Serbian civil rights organizations, including the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (Nezavisno Udruženje Novinara Srbije – NUNS – IJAS – https://nuns.rs/), have called for thorough investigations into these abuses.
The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) is alarmed about the information of possible use of spyware and digital surveillance technologies against journalists and activists in Serbia, as detailed in Amnesty International’s recent report. Such practices are not only a blatant violation of privacy rights but also a direct attack on press freedom and democracy. The deployment of spyware like NoviSpy, coupled with the misuse of forensic tools like Cellebrite’s UFED, is deeply disturbing and poses a serious threat to civil society. SEEMO is committed to monitoring this situation closely and urges Serbian authorities to immediately cease these abuses, conduct a transparent investigation, and uphold the rights and freedoms of all citizens.
South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) is a regional non-governmental, non profit network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in Southeast, South, East and Central Europe. SEEMO members are in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova (with the territory of Transdnestria), Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Türkiye / Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Austria, Italy, Vatican and San Marino have a special status in SEEMO. SEEMO has over 3000 individual members, and additional media as corporate members.
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