Microsoft launches inquiry into claims Israel used its tech for mass surveillance of Palestinians | Israel-Gaza warfare

Microsoft has launched an “urgent” exterior inquiry into allegations Israel’s army surveillance company has used the corporate’s know-how to facilitate the mass surveillance of Palestinians.

The firm stated on Friday the formal evaluate was in response to a Guardian investigation that exposed how the Unit 8200 spy company has relied on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to retailer an unlimited assortment of on a regular basis Palestinian cell phone calls.

The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call discovered Unit 8200 made use of a customized and segregated space inside Azure to retailer recordings of hundreds of thousands of calls made day by day in Gaza and the West Bank.

In a press release, Microsoft stated “using Azure for the storage of data files of phone calls obtained through broad or mass surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank” could be prohibited by its phrases of service.

The inquiry, to be overseen by legal professionals on the US agency Covington & Burling, is the second exterior evaluate commissioned by Microsoft into using its know-how by the Israeli army.

The first was launched this yr amid dissent inside the firm and stories by the Guardian and others about Israel’s reliance on the corporate’s know-how throughout its offensive in Gaza. Announcing the evaluate’s findings in May, Microsoft stated it had “found no evidence to date” the Israeli army had did not adjust to its phrases of service or used Azure “to target or harm people” in Gaza.

However, the current Guardian investigation prompted issues amongst senior Microsoft executives about whether or not a few of its Israel-based staff could have hid details about how Unit 8200 makes use of Azure when questioned as a part of the evaluate.

Microsoft stated on Friday the brand new inquiry would increase on the sooner one, including: “Microsoft appreciates that the Guardian’s recent report raises additional and precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”

The firm can also be going through strain from a worker-led marketing campaign group, No Azure for Apartheid, which has accused it of “complicity in genocide and apartheid” and demanded it reduce off “all ties to the Israeli military” and make them publicly recognized.

Responding to the announcement, the group criticised Microsoft’s resolution to launch an inquiry, describing it as “yet another tactic to delay” assembly its calls for.

Since the Guardian and its companions, +972 and Local Call, revealed Unit 8200’s sweeping surveillance challenge final week, Microsoft has been scrambling to evaluate what information the unit holds in Azure.

Several Microsoft sources accustomed to inner deliberations stated the corporate’s management was involved by info from Unit 8200 sources interviewed for the article, together with claims that intelligence drawn from repositories of telephone calls held in Azure had been used to analysis and determine bombing targets in Gaza.

Israel’s 22-month bombardment of the territory, launched after the Hamas-led assault on 7 October 2023, has killed greater than 60,000 individuals, nearly all of them civilians, in response to the well being authority within the territory, although the precise loss of life toll is prone to be considerably larger.

Senior Microsoft executives had in current days thought-about a clumsy state of affairs by which Unit 8200, an essential and delicate buyer, might be in breach of the corporate’s phrases of service and human rights commitments, sources stated.

According to leaked recordsdata reviewed by the Guardian, the corporate was conscious as early as late 2021 that Unit 8200 deliberate to maneuver giant volumes of delicate and categorized intelligence information into Azure.

At Microsoft’s headquarters in November that yr, senior executives – together with its chief govt, Satya Nadella – attended a gathering throughout which Unit 8200’s commander mentioned a plan to maneuver as a lot as 70% of its information into the cloud platform.

The firm has stated its executives, together with Nadella, weren’t conscious Unit 8200 deliberate to make use of or in the end used Azure to retailer the content material of intercepted Palestinian calls. “We have no information related to the data stored in the customer’s cloud environment,” a spokesperson stated final week.

An Israeli army spokesperson has beforehand stated its work with firms comparable to Microsoft is “conducted based on regulated and legally supervised agreements” and the army “operates in accordance with international law”.

The new inquiry will look at the army’s industrial agreements with Microsoft. Once accomplished, the corporate will “share with the public the factual findings that result from this review”, its assertion stated.