Microsoft has blocked an Israeli military unit from its use of some of its technology services, while the company has found evidence that this technology is being used to monitor Palestinian civilians.
Redmond, as a response to moved by wash-based tech giant Reported by Guardian August 6Which revealed how Microsoft was used to save and process millions of Palestinian civilian phone calls every day on Gaza and the West Bank.
Microsoft’s President Brad Smith Announced on a note of staff The Services used by the Israeli military spy agency 8200 on Thursday decide to close and disable. He said that an ongoing review of Microsoft “proof that supports Guardians’ reports” has found evidence.
Smith writes, “We do not provide technology to facilitate the extensive surveillance of civilians.” “We have applied this policy to every country in the world and we have emphasized it over and over for more than two decades.”
He also mentioned that Microsoft’s customers’ respect for privacy rights – in this case, the Israeli military forces – among other issues it cannot access the customer’s content. The company acknowledged the limitations of what could verify it by quoting its lack of visibility in private servers outside its cloud.
Guardian reports and Microsoft transactions with Israel during the ongoing war in Gaza and Microsoft’s transactions have become the basis for repeated protests against the company on campus and elsewhere.
Group memberThere is no azur for racism Microsoft has called on Israeli military and government to spend all relations with the government. Protests in the Redmond in August have increased in increasing clashes. Twenty people, including some current and former employees, were arrested during a protest on the campus on August 20. A week later, several protesters occupied Smith’s office in 34.
At that time Smith said that Microsoft was committed to supporting its human rights policies and the Guardian report was actively investigating.
Update: In A statement on ThursdayThis step of Microsoft was “an unprecedented, but inadequate, win for our campaign” in a racism of racism that it was only possible “because of the sustainable pressure by our promotion.”
Microsoft officials described the group’s activities as resentment from the attempt to investigate the matter and had a conversation with its staff.
The Guardian says that the huge assortment of Palestinian calls – which was 8,000 terabyte data was – was held at a Microsoft Data Center in the Netherlands. The newspaper said that within a few days of its investigation, “Unit 125 seems to have removed the surveillance data out of the country.”
Thursday, The guardian quoted the formula The data that occurred in early August was familiar with the transfer and the unit was “Amazon Web Services Cloud Plans to transfer data to the platform.” None of the Israeli Defense Force or Amazon responded to the Guardians’ comments and Gikwire also reached Amazon.
In his memory to employees, Smith told that the company would continue to supply cyberquacy services to Israel and other countries in the Middle East.
Read the full letter to Brad Smith’s staff:
I would like to inform you that Microsoft has turned off a set service in a unit of the Ministry of Defense (IMOD) and has disabled. I know many of you are careful about this and I have not shared this decision below.
Let me supply some context first. I have said to you in recent weeks, Microsoft is not a government or country. We are a company. Like each organization, we decide what products and services we will offer to our customers.
As we are publiclyDeclarationAugust 15, we decided to review one of the allegations present in oneArticlePublished by August 6GuardianAbout a unit of Israel Defense Force (IDF). As we have explained at that time,GuardianThe article states that “multiple people emphasized that the IDF is using azure to store data files of phone calls received through extensive or mass surveillance of civilians on the West Bank.”
We’ve reviewedGuardianBased on the two principles, both are based on the prolonged protection of Microsoft’s privacy as a fundamental right. As employees, our customers can rely on our services with the Rock Solid Trust, ensuring that we all have the interest in protecting the privacy of the business.
First, we do not provide technology to facilitate the extensive surveillance of civilians. We have applied this policy to every country in the world and we have repeatedly emphasized it for more than two decades. This is why on August 15, we have publicly explained that the quality of the service of Microsoft forbids the use of our technology to extensively monitor civilians.
Second, we respect and protect our customers’ privacy rights. This means that we do not access our customers’ content in this type of investigation.
From August 15, we followed this review by respecting both these policies, as well as agency policies, contracts and customer promises. At any stage Microsoft did not access the customer content of IMOD. Rather, the review focuses on Microsoft’s own business records, including financial details, internal documents and emails and message contacts among other records.
While our review is running, we have found evidence that supports its elementsGuardianReporting. This proof includes information related to the use of IMOD related to the use of azure storage capacity in the Netherlands and the use of AI services.
So we informed the specified IMOD subscription and the use of specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies and notify Microsoft’s IMOD to stop and disable their services. We have reviewed this decision with the steps we take to comply with IMOD and our services terms, focusing on ensuring that our services are not used to monitor civilians extensively.
As I said in our recent employee Townhah, it does not affect the important task that Microsoft continues to protect the cyberquacy of Israel and other countries in the Middle East under the Abraham Agreement.
I would like to note our appreciation for reportingGuardianIts reports were based on the outer sources of Microsoft that had information that we could not access the light of our customer’s privacy promises. It helped to notify our review.
I appreciate that many of you will have additional questions. Our review is underway. I will share more information in the coming days and weeks, when it is appropriate to do it, including learning lessons from this review and we will apply these lessons as soon as we proceed.
Microsoft will continue as a company governed by policies and ethics. We will take this value to each decision, statement and action. This is non-negotiable.
Brad