Microsoft cuts Israel access to its cloud used to spy on Palestinians

Tech thunderclap: Microsoft ended the access to the Israeli intelligence unit 8200 to some of its cloud and artificial intelligence services. According to The Guardianthis unit operated the Azure platform to store and analyze millions of Palestinian telephone calls intercepted every day in the West Bank and Gaza. This decision follows a journalistic investigation revealing the magnitude of a massive surveillance program capable of processing “a million calls on time”. Under pressure from its employees and investors, the American giant concluded that these practices violated its conditions of use: “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass monitoring of civilians,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft.

The case highlights the growing dependence of the Israeli army to digital giants. According to several sources, sensitive data stored in a Microsoft Center in the Netherlands have been transferred in emergency to other platforms, including Amazon Web Services, upon publication of the survey. This race to relocate data of data highlights the challenges of sovereignty and control that surround military accommodation in the cloud.

It also illustrates the rise of an internal challenge in the Silicon Valley. Campaigns like No Azure for apartheid have mobilized employees and shareholders to demand the termination of military contracts deemed contrary to human rights. Microsoft’s decision could thus mark a turning point, encouraging other technological companies to review their partnerships with the Israeli army.

Beyond the technological aspect, this case throws raw light on the Israeli strategy for the control of a population under occupation. It confirms the desire to transform Gaza and the West Bank into zones under integral surveillance, where each call, each movement, becomes a military data. This logic, denounced by many lawyers as a blatant violation of international law, reveals a policy of domination which is no longer content to bomb, but seeks to reduce an entire people to a flow of information to be exploited and target.