Microsoft has officially announced that it is blocking the Israeli military's access to several cloud and AI services that have been used to mass-surveillance Palestinian civilians.
This was announced by Microsoft Vice Chairman and President Brad Smith to his employees on Thursday (25/9) after several media outlets including The Guardian reported last month that Israel stored recordings and data of Palestinian citizens in Microsoft's Azure service totaling up to one million calls per hour.
"While our review is ongoing, we have found evidence that supports some elements of The Guardian's report," Smith said in his announcement, as quoted by The Verge, Thursday (25/9).
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Microsoft has coordinated with the Israeli Ministry of Defense that several IMOD subscription services have been disabled by Microsoft including the use of cloud storage and certain AI technology-related services.
"We have reviewed this decision with IMOD and the steps we are taking to ensure compliance with our terms of service, with a focus on ensuring our services are not used for mass surveillance of civilians," Smith said.
The block applies to a “set of services” used by a unit within IMOD, and Smith asserted that Microsoft “does not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians.”
