Israeli telecommunication firms were used to track mobile phone users more than 15,000 times in more than 10 countries over the past three years, Haaretz reported on 4 May.

The Israeli newspaper cited an investigation by Citizen Lab, a digital research group, that described two separate operations to track the locations of mobile phone users. The operations were likely run by commercial firms selling surveillance technologies to governments around the world.

Citizen Lab wrote that, “The findings expose how suspected commercial surveillance vendors (CSVs) exploit the global telecom interconnect ecosystem, leverage private operator networks, and conduct covert location tracking operations that can persist undetected for years.”

The first operation used geolocation technology to track targets using networks belonging to two Israeli companies, 019Mobile and Partner Communications.

Researchers identified more than 500 location-tracking attempts between November 2022 and 2025 across Thailand, South Africa, Norway, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and other African countries using the two companies’ networks.

One businessman from West Asia was methodically tracked for four hours by a company that queried the international phone system on behalf of clients to locate targets.

According to information obtained by Haaretz, this and dozens of other tracking attempts appear to have passed through the servers of Israeli carrier 019Mobile.

Citizen Lab found that mobile network addresses registered to 019Mobile were used to send location-tracking requests through Partner Communications, whose infrastructure 019 relies on. Another tracking request was routed through Exelera Telecom, an Israeli company that provides cloud and communications services.

A second, more sophisticated operation involved a Swiss telecom company that allowed firms such as Rayzone to impersonate cellular carriers and connect to mobile networks to track users across the world.

The operation involved using an older telecom signaling protocol, SS7, to conduct surveillance of mobile phone users. SS7 was originally designed to route calls and text messages, enable international roaming, and connect different mobile operators.

Citizen Lab’s findings showed that spyware firms are also using newer signaling systems to track users, even though the newer systems were designed to be more secure and less susceptible to surveillance than legacy ones.

For example, Diameter, a mobile network system that connects cellular users to 4G international roaming and 5G networks, is known to be susceptible to tracking spyware.

One method involves exploiting vulnerabilities in SIM cards to send a hidden text message to a target phone. The message contains a secret command that prompts the SIM card to transmit the device’s location without the user’s knowledge.

As a result of such methods, both the old and new phone signaling systems are being used together to track and surveil mobile users, Haaretz observed.