Smartphones Now Involved in Nearly Every Police Investigation

Cellebrite’s 2026 Industry Trends Report, based on interviews with 1,200 law enforcement practitioners across 63 countries, finds that digital evidence—especially from smartphones—is now central to investigations but increasingly complex to process; agencies report locked devices, data correlation challenges, training gaps and resource strains, growing interest in AI and cloud tools, and lingering public mistrust following historical police data breaches.