Microsoft has decided to suspend access to cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) services used by the Israeli military for mass surveillance of Palestinian civilians. This significant move was announced in an internal memorandum sent to employees by the company’s Vice President and President, Brad Smith, on Thursday.
Limited Restrictions and Reactions
The decision stems from reports last month, reported by The Guardian and other media outlets, that the Israeli government stores “up to one million calls” per hour of Palestinian voice recordings and data in its Azure cloud.
“As our review continues, we have found evidence supporting the elements of The Guardian’s report,” Smith said in a statement. Following these findings, Microsoft notified the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) of its decision to suspend and disable certain subscriptions that include these specialized cloud storage and AI services.
Smith made it clear that this move focuses on ensuring compliance with the company’s terms of service and that its services “are not used for mass surveillance of civilians.” The decision covers a “specific set of services” used by a unit within IMOD. However, Smith emphasized that this move does not affect Microsoft’s other contracts with the Israeli government, particularly its continued “important work to protect the cybersecurity of Israel and other countries in the Middle East under the Abraham Accords.”
According to The Guardian, the Israeli army began migrating approximately 8 TB of data from Azure days after the original reports were published and plans to transfer this data to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Microsoft’s review of the Israeli army’s use of Azure and AI technologies follows both The Guardian’s reporting and intense pressure from current and former Microsoft employees.
The activist group “No Azure for Apartheid” has been organizing protests against Microsoft for more than a year. Their actions included sit-ins at its headquarters last month and even a livestream of breaking into Microsoft President Brad Smith’s office. The company recently fired five employees in connection with these protests. Hossam Nasr, an organizer with the group No Azure for Apartheid, called the decision “a significant and unprecedented victory for our campaign and our organization.” “Less than a month after our sit-in in Brad Smith’s office, Microsoft made a significant decision to become the first US tech company since the beginning of the genocide in Gaza to halt the sale of certain technologies to the Israeli military,” Nasr said.
However, Nasr stated that the decision was insufficient because Microsoft only applied this restriction to a single unit of the Israeli military and a small portion of its services. “The vast majority of Microsoft’s contracts with the Israeli military remain intact,” Nasr said, signaling that the fight will continue.
