Microsoft Halts Sales of Services Used by Israel for Mass Surveillance
Microsoft has stopped selling, and has disabled, several services it provides to the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) because they're being used for mass surveillance of civilians, Microsoft President Brad Smith told employees Thursday.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Privacy Daily provides accurate coverage of newsworthy developments in data protection legislation, regulation, litigation, and enforcement for privacy professionals responsible for ensuring effective organizational data privacy compliance.
The company announced on Aug. 15 that it would review allegations in The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces were using Azure to store data files of phone calls obtained through widespread surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, Smith noted.
Microsoft reviewed the allegations in light of privacy protection principles, he wrote: The company doesn't provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians, and it respects and protects its customers' privacy rights.
Microsoft found evidence to support the newspaper's reporting, including information relating to IMOD consumption of Azure storage capacity in the Netherlands and the use of AI services, Smith said. The reports were based partly on sources outside Microsoft that had information the company couldn't access because of customer privacy commitments, he added.