"Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation revealing the military had used the company's technology to operate a powerful surveillance system that collected Palestinian civilian phone calls on a mass scale. The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication, +972 Magazine, and the Hebrew-language outlet, Local Call, found the military's elite spy agency, Unit 8200, had used Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to store a vast trove of intercepted calls from Gaza and the West Bank."
"Within weeks of launching the inquiry, Microsoft concluded that its initial findings showed Unit 8200 had violated its terms of service, which prohibit the use of its technology to facilitate mass surveillance. As a result, the company terminated the unit's access to cloud services and AI products used to support the surveillance project. Equipped with Azure's near-limitless storage capacity and computing power, Unit 8200 built an indiscriminate system allowing its intelligence officers to collect, play back and analyse the content of millions of Palestinian cellular phone calls every day."
"The inquiry commissioned by Microsoft is understood to have recently concluded. Its findings are unclear, however sources familiar with the situation said they prompted an announcement last week that Microsoft Israel's general manager, Alon Haimovich, would leave the company. The Israeli business newspaper, Globes, reported on Monday that Haimovich's departure followed a major controversy at the subsidiary relating to violations of Microsoft's code of ethics. It reported that several other managers had also left their positions."
"Details of the surveillance programme's reliance on Azure sparked concerns among senior executives at Microsoft that some of its Israel-based employees may not have been fully trans"
Microsoft ordered an inquiry into its Israeli subsidiary’s business dealings with the Israeli military after reporting showed military use of Microsoft technology for large-scale surveillance of Palestinian phone calls. The investigation, conducted with Israeli and Palestinian outlets, found Unit 8200 stored intercepted calls from Gaza and the West Bank on Microsoft Azure. Microsoft concluded that Unit 8200 violated terms of service that prohibit using its technology to facilitate mass surveillance. Microsoft terminated Unit 8200’s access to cloud services and AI products supporting the surveillance project. The inquiry’s conclusions were linked to the departure of Microsoft Israel’s general manager, alongside other managerial exits, amid controversy over ethics code violations.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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