Microsoft said on Thursday that it had disabled some services to Israel’s Defense Ministry, after a company review concluded Israel was violating the terms of service for its products.
The review found evidence that Israel was using Microsoft’s cloud storage services to hold surveillance data on Palestinians, according to a company blog post. The data included records of millions of phone calls made daily between Palestinians, confirming reporting this year from The Guardian and the Israeli news site +972.
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, said in the blog post that the company had “a shared interest in privacy protection, given the business value it creates by ensuring our customers can rely on our services with rock solid trust.”
Microsoft would not provide technology to “facilitate mass surveillance of civilians,” he said.
Israel’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft employees have recently pressured the company to cut off Israel’s use of the company’s software. Last month, some current and former employees infiltrated Mr. Smith’s office to lodge their protests.
Microsoft did not specify which services it was cutting Israel off from, but said in the blog post that it would continue to support the country’s cybersecurity efforts.
An official from Israel’s Defense Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Microsoft was cutting off the country’s access to its cloud storage services. Before Microsoft’s review, Israel had moved its cloud services to other platforms, including Amazon, he said.
Israel’s Ministry of Defense and its military intelligence unit 8200 use services provided by tech companies including Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Last year, The New York Times reported that Israel’s facial recognition program in Gaza relied on some free services from Google. Google also has a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government and military, which has led to concerns over whether it might damage the company’s reputation.
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.
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