Microsoft cuts cloud services to Israeli military unit over Palestinian surveillance

Microsoft has cut off the access of the Israeli Ministry of Defense to part of its technology and services after an internal investigation has shown that the organization seemed to use its technology to save security data on Palestinians’s phone calls.

The Tech giant announced on Thursday that it made the decision to ‘stop and eliminate certain subscriptions of the Israeli army. This influences subscriptions to Azure Cloud storage and certain AI services.

“We do not offer technology to facilitate mass surveillance from burgers,” wrote Microsoft Vice chairman and President Brad Smith in a Blog post. “We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have urged it for more than two decades.

Microsoft has informed Israel of his decision last week, according to The guardian.

The decision follows the continuous assessment of Microsoft van de Zaak, which started in August. The research was fueled by a story in The guardian This reported that unit 8200, the Elite Israel Military Intelligence Unit, used Azure Cloud Storage to accommodate data about telephone calls obtained by supervising Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

In his blog post, Smith also said that the company appreciated the Guardian’s first report. Smith wrote that without this they did not know that they would investigate the issue, because they do not have access to the content of a customer because of the privacy rights of the customer.

“As employees, we all have a shared interest in privacy protection, given the business value it creates by ensuring that our customers can trust our services with Solid Trust,” Smith wrote.

The company said that the assessment is underway, but refused to comment on WAN about what was still being assessed.

Microsoft has set fire to both employees and outsiders because of his involvement with Israel in the past year. Protests with regard to Microsoft’s relationship with Israel broke out during the 50 -year anniversary of the company in April. In August, various employees organized a sit-in on Smith’s Office and forced a lockdown.

The company has fired Multiple employees In recent months for their activism with regard to Microsoft’s contracts with Israel.