Microsoft Suspends Cloud Services To Israeli Military Unit

The Israel Ministry of Defence has been denied access to certain of Microsoft’s technology and services after an internal investigation which had revealed that the organisation suspected to be making use of the technology to store surveillance data on Palestinian phone calls.

The tech giant declared on earlier today, Thursday, that it has decided to “cease and disable” certain of the Israeli military’s subscriptions. Subscriptions to specific AI services and Azure cloud storage are impacted.

Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith stated in a blog post, “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians.” For more than 20 years, we have consistently emphasised this principle and implemented it in every nation on the planet.

For this reason, on August 15, Brad Smith said that they made it clear to the public that using Microsoft’s technology for widespread civilian surveillance is prohibited by the company’s ordinary terms of service.

Reports had it that, The Guardian informed had Israel about Microsoft decision sometimes last week.

The ruling comes after Microsoft began investigating the issue in August. Unit 8200, the elite Israel military intelligence unit, was utilising Azure cloud storage to store data on phone calls gathered from the surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, according to a piece in The Guardian that prompted the probe.

Also Smith added in a blog post that the company, Microsoft, commended The Guardian’s which happens to be the British Newspaper for its early coverage. Smith stated that without it, they would not have known to investigate the issue because they are unable to access a customer’s content because of their right to privacy.

Smith added by saying that ‘’given the company’s value privacy protection creates by ensuring its customers can rely on their services with rock solid trust, we all have a shared interest in it as employees.”

Following pressure from workers who objected to Israel’s use of Microsoft software in its invasion of Gaza, the company had decided to discontinue those services. And five Microsoft employees have been sacked in respect to this, in recent weeks for taking part in protests at the company’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters.

The action was taken a week after a United Nations commission declared that Israel’s invasion of Gaza constituted genocide against Palestinians.

The British Newpaper, The Guardian also revealed that on Thursday that anonymous intelligence sources had stated that Unit 8200 intended to switch to Amazon Web Services, the industry-leading public cloud, for its phone supply. AWS refused commenting instantly on this.

The service terminations, according to Microsoft, comes after major policy violations and the on-site protests had “created significant safety concerns.”