"United States tech giant Microsoft has cancelled some services it provides to the Israeli military over concerns it is violating its terms of service by using the firm's cloud computing software to spy on millions of Palestinians, the company's vice chair and president Brad Smith confirmed. Smith wrote in a Thursday blog post that the company had ceased and disabled a set of services to a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence in response to an August 6 joint investigation by The Guardian newspaper, +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call."
"The report alleged that the Israeli military's Unit 8200 used Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through mass surveillance in war-torn Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Unit 8200 is the Israeli military's elite cyber warfare unit responsible for clandestine operations, including collecting signal intelligence and surveillance. The investigation by journalists revealed that following a 2021 meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Unit 8200's leader Yossi Sariel, an agreement was reached to collaborate on moving large volumes of sensitive intelligence material into the company's Azure platform."
"The process, which has been operational since 2022, allowed Unit 8200 to utilise Azure's near-limitless storage capacity and computing power to collect, play back and analyse the phone calls of millions of Palestinians. The cloud-based system also helped Israel to guide deadly air strikes and shaped operations across the occupied Palestinian territory, Unit 8200 sources told the news outlets. The report also identified that a large amount of the data on Palestinians appeared to be stored on Microsoft's Azure servers located in the Netherlands and Ireland."
Microsoft ceased and disabled a set of cloud services to a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence after finding terms-of-service violations. The Israeli military's Unit 8200 used Azure to store phone call data obtained through mass surveillance across Gaza and the occupied West Bank. A 2021 meeting between Microsoft leadership and Unit 8200 leadership led to an agreement to migrate sensitive intelligence into Azure, with operations running since 2022. Azure's storage and computing capacity enabled collection, playback and analysis of millions of Palestinian phone calls and assisted targeting for air strikes. Large quantities of the data appeared stored on servers in the Netherlands and Ireland.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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