Microsoft, a tech giant in the United States, has suspended some of the services it offers to the Israeli military over concerns that it is breaking its terms of service by using its cloud-based software to spy on Palestinians in order to spy on them, according to vice president and president Brad Smith.
In response to a joint investigation by The Guardian newspaper, + 972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call on August 6, Smith wrote in a Thursday blog post that the company had “ceased and disabled a set of services” to a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence.
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The Israeli military’s Unit 8200 allegedly stored phone call data collected during extensive surveillance in Gaza and the occupied West Bank using Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.
The elite cyber warfare unit of the Israeli military conducts clandestine operations, including gathering and monitoring signal intelligence. Unit 8200 is responsible for this.
Following a meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Unit 8200’s leader Yossi Sariel in 2021, according to the journalists’ investigation, they came to terms with moving significant amounts of sensitive intelligence into the company’s Azure platform.
Utilizing Azure’s near-limitless storage capacity and computing power, Unit 8200 could use the process, which has been in operation since 2022, to record, play back, and analyze the calls made by millions of Palestinians.
According to Unit 8200 sources, the cloud-based system also assisted Israel in guiding deadly airstrikes and shaping operations throughout the occupied Palestinian territory. Additionally, the report found that a significant portion of Palestinians’ data appeared to be being stored on Microsoft’s Azure servers in the Netherlands and Ireland.
According to Smith, Microsoft’s Smith said the company had “two principles” in mind when it had evaluated the claims made in the report and that the Israeli military’s data storage had broken company rules.
First, we don’t offer any technology to make it possible for civilians to be subject to mass surveillance. He said, “We have insisted on this principle for more than 20 years, and we have applied it in every nation in the world.”
Second, Smith continued, “We respect and safeguard the privacy rights of our customers.”
Smith confirmed that some Israeli Defense Ministry subscriptions, including “specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies,” had been cancelled even though she did not name the specific Israeli unit that was losing access to Microsoft services.
Following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the start of the devastating Gaza war, the Israeli military’s use of Microsoft products increased, according to The Associated Press news agency in February.
Similar reports were made that the Israeli military regularly monitored surveillance using gigabytes of cloud storage and enormous amounts of AI-enabled language translation services, and that the AI systems were collaborating to determine who should be targeted for airstrikes.
Microsoft made it known in May that it had assisted in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli prisoners in the besieged enclave by selling cutting-edge AI and cloud computing products to the Israeli military during its occupation of Gaza.
However, the company claimed that an internal review revealed “no proof” that Azure was being used to target or harm people.
A second review, conducted by an outside law firm, was requested after the August news investigation.
Smith said that the investigation is ongoing, but it has already found proof that its products were being used in ways that were against its terms of service.
One of the more than a dozen Microsoft employees who was fired or detained because of protests against their involvement in the Gaza war, Hossam Nasr, praised the action as an “unprecedented win,” but added that the “vast majority of Microsoft’s contract with the Israeli military is still in place.
Source: Aljazeera
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