Microsoft has suspended certain services for a division of Israel’s Ministry of Defence following an investigation that indicated its technology was used for mass surveillance in Gaza. Brad Smith, the company’s president, stated that the use of Microsoft’s technology for civilian surveillance breaches the company’s standard terms of service. He clarified that this decision, stemming from an investigation published by The Guardian, would not impact other collaborations Microsoft maintains with Israel.
The investigation reported that a unit of Israel’s Defence Ministry utilized Microsoft’s Azure cloud service to gather and store enormous amounts of intercepted communications from Palestinian civilians. The analysis of this data reportedly aided military operations in Gaza and the West Bank. Microsoft, which has received pushback from employees regarding its partnerships with Israel, initiated its own review of the matter in light of the allegations.
In the review, Microsoft noted that it didn’t directly access customer content but found enough evidence to validate aspects of the Guardian’s report, such as the significant consumption of storage resources in the Netherlands and the use of AI services. As a result, Microsoft notified the Israeli Ministry of Defence of its intention to “cease and disable” specific subscriptions and services, including certain cloud storage and AI technologies.
The investigation also revealed intentions from the affected unit to migrate its data to Amazon’s cloud platform, though Amazon did not provide comments on this matter. Earlier, a United Nations expert urged multinational corporations, including Microsoft, to reconsider their business dealings with Israel, citing potential complicity in violations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. This report was presented to the UN Human Rights Council and highlighted that other companies like Amazon and Alphabet were similarly pressured by their employees on these issues.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgjx0zve2no?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss