Microsoft blocks 'Israel's' Unit 8200 from using its cloud services
3 Min Read
Microsoft has cut off cloud and AI services to Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s elite cyber unit, over its use of Azure in mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
-
The logo of Microsoft is seen outside its French headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux, outside Paris, Monday, May 13, 2024. (AP)
Microsoft has ended the Israeli military's ability to use its technology, which had been employed to run a powerful surveillance system that gathered millions of phone calls made daily by Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, The Guardian reported on Friday.
According to sources familiar with the situation, Microsoft informed Israeli officials late last week that Unit 8200, the military’s elite spy agency, had breached the company’s terms of service by storing the vast trove of surveillance data within its Azure cloud platform.
On Thursday, Microsoft’s vice-chair and president, Brad Smith, informed staff of the decision in an email seen by The Guardian, stating the company had “ceased and disabled a set of services" to a unit within the Israel Security Ministry, which included cloud storage and AI services.
“We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians. We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades," Smith emphasized in his e-mail.
Based on a document seen by The Guardian, a senior Microsoft executive informed the Israeli Ministry of Security late last week that, while the company's review is ongoing, "at this juncture identified evidence that supports elements of the Guardian’s reporting."
The executive informed Israeli officials that Microsoft "is not in the business of facilitating the mass surveillance of civilians," and consequently notified them of the company's decision to disable access to services supporting the Unit 8200 surveillance project and suspend its use of some AI products.
'Israel' using Microsoft services to spy on Palestinians
The decision to terminate Unit 8200’s access to some of Microsoft's technology resulted directly from a joint The Guardian-Local Call-+972 Magazine investigation published last month, which revealed that the unit was utilizing the Azure platform to store and process a trove of Palestinian communications as a component of a mass surveillance programme.
According to sources, the project originated after a meeting in 2021 that involved Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, and the then-commander of the unit, Yossi Sariel.
In response to the investigation, Microsoft ordered an urgent external inquiry to review its relationship with Unit 8200, whose initial findings have now led the company to cancel the unit’s access to some of its cloud storage and AI services.
By leveraging Azure's near-limitless storage capacity and computing power, Unit 8200 was able to build an indiscriminate new system that granted its intelligence officers the ability to collect, play back, and analyze the content of cellular calls from an entire population.
The immense scale of the project prompted a mantra within Unit 8200 to summarize its ambition with a simple, internal mantra: "A million calls an hour," according to sources within the unit itself.
