Brad Smith, president of Microsoft
US technological giant Microsoft says she found that Israel would be violating some of the terms of service of her products and states that “it does not provide technology to facilitate mass vigilance of civilians.”
Microsoft reported Thursday that it had disabled some services For the Israeli Ministry of Defense, after an internal review concluded that the country was infringing the terms of service of its products.
The analysis found evidence that Israel would be using Microsoft cloud storage services to Surveillance data About Palestinians, according to one published in the company’s blog.
Data included records of millions of telephone calls Held daily among Palestinians, confirming this year’s British newspaper reports and Israeli news site.
Brad SmithPresident of Microsoft, says in the blog that the company shares “a Common interest in protecting privacyGiven the commercial value it creates by ensuring that our customers can trust our services with full security. ”
Microsoft does not provide technology to “facilitate mass surveillance of civilians,” adds Smith in the statement. Smith did not specify which services would be cutting to Israel, but said the company would continue to support the country’s efforts in terms of cybersecurity.
Microsoft is one of the first technological companies to take action To remove or disable services to Israel since the beginning of the war in Gaza, almost two years ago, note o.
Israel established a vast technological infrastructure To watch the Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and within the Israeli territory, monitoring telephone calls, text messages and social networks, and uses this information to Military operations and air strikes in Gaza.
The country has resorted to companies such as Google, Amazon and Oracle to host and store surveillance -related data. Last year, the NYT that Israel’s facial recognition program in Gaza used some of the Free Google Services.
Employees of some of Silicon Valley’s largest companies criticized their companies’ collaboration with the Israeli government. In April 2024, Google more than 50 workers who protested against the company’s activity in the country.
Matt Mahmoudian International investigator who has studied Israel’s use of technology in the surveillance of Palestinians, greeted Microsoft’s decision.
“Microsoft’s conduct should serve as a warning to other companies which provide cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence and Israel surveillance products, ”he said.
