Microsoft cloud used in Israeli mass surveillance of Palestinians: Report

Leaked documents uncover Israel’s spy bureau utilized Microsoft’s unreality to store Palestinians’ telephone calls and people them.

Israel’s elite cyber-intelligence portion stored immense volumes of intercepted Palestinian telephone calls connected Microsoft’s unreality servers, according to a associated probe by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call.

The surveillance system, operational since 2022, was built by Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s secretive quality branch. It enables the portion to cod and clasp recordings of millions of regular telephone calls from Palestinians successful Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The revelations initially reported connected Wednesday stem from leaked Microsoft documents and testimonies from 11 sources, including from Israeli subject quality and the company.

According to the leaks, a ample magnitude of the information appeared to beryllium stored connected Microsoft’s Azure servers located successful the Netherlands and Ireland, the Guardian reported.

Three sources from Unit 8200 said that the cloud-based strategy helped usher deadly aerial strikes and shaped operations crossed the occupied Palestinian territories.

Microsoft said that CEO Satya Nadella, who met with Unit 8200’s commandant Yossi Sariel successful 2021, was unaware of the quality of the information to beryllium stored. The institution has said an interior reappraisal recovered “no grounds to date” that Azure oregon its artificial quality (AI) tools were “used to people oregon harm people”.

The revelations travel aft the United Nations peculiar rapporteur connected the concern of quality rights successful the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, issued a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel successful its concern and warfare connected Gaza.

The study noted that Microsoft, which has operated successful Israel since 1991, has built its largest hub extracurricular the US successful Israel and began integrating its technologies crossed the country’s military, police, prisons, schools, and settlements.

Since 2003, the institution has deepened ties with Israeli defence, acquiring surveillance and cybersecurity start-ups and embedding its systems successful subject operations. In 2024, an Israeli colonel called unreality technologies specified arsenic those offered by Microsoft “a limb successful each sense”.

The Guardian reported that interior records astatine Microsoft showed that Nadella offered enactment for Sariel’s purpose to determination ample volumes of subject quality into the cloud.

A Microsoft connection cited by the Guardian said it “is not accurate” to accidental helium provided his idiosyncratic enactment for the project.

Microsoft engineers aboriginal worked intimately with Israeli quality to embed information features wrong Azure, enabling the transportation of up to 70 percent of Unit 8200’s delicate information to the platform.

While Israeli officials assertion the exertion helps thwart attacks, Unit 8200 sources said the strategy collects communications indiscriminately, which are often utilized to detain oregon blackmail Palestinians. “When they request to apprehension idiosyncratic and determination isn’t a bully capable crushed … that’s wherever they find the excuse,” 1 root was cited arsenic saying.

Some sources alleged the stored information had been utilized to warrant detentions and adjacent killings.

The system’s enlargement coincided with a broader displacement successful Israeli surveillance, moving from targeted tracking to bulk monitoring of the Palestinian population. One AI-driven instrumentality reportedly assigns hazard scores to substance messages based connected definite trigger words, including discussions of weapons oregon martyrdom.

Sariel, who resigned successful 2024 aft Israel’s quality nonaccomplishment connected October 7, 2023, had agelong championed cloud-based surveillance.

As Israel’s warfare connected Gaza continues, with much than 61,250 Palestinians killed, including 18,000 children, the surveillance programme remains active. Sources said the existing data, combined with AI tools, continues to beryllium utilized successful subject operations.

Microsoft claimed it had “no information” astir the circumstantial information stored by Unit 8200.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies