Microsoft Tightens Human Rights Measures After Israel Inquiry

The Lead

Microsoft has announced new measures to tighten human rights controls when working with national security agencies after an inquiry into the Israeli military's use of its cloud technology for mass surveillance of Palestinians.

Microsoft's Inquiry and New Measures

The inquiry was launched last year in response to a Guardian investigation with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, revealing how the Israeli military used Microsoft's cloud to store a vast trove of intercepted Palestinian phone calls.

Microsoft terminated the Israeli military's access to cloud and AI services used to support the surveillance project after initial findings showed its spy agency, Unit 8200, had violated the company's terms of service.

The Data Analysis

• Microsoft's inquiry found that Unit 8200 had used Microsoft's Azure cloud platform to operate an indiscriminate system that allowed its intelligence officers to collect, play back and analyse the content of millions of Palestinian cellular phone calls every day.
• The company has previously said senior executives such as its chief executive, Satya Nadella, were unaware Unit 8200 was using Azure to store intercepted Palestinian communications.

The Impact Analysis

The revelations prompted concerns at a senior level within Microsoft that some employees at its Israeli subsidiary had not been fully transparent with headquarters about their knowledge of how Unit 8200 used the company's technology.

Sources familiar with the inquiry said it had examined how some of Microsoft's Tel Aviv-based employees had felt conflicting loyalties between their obligations to the company and their support for the Israeli military after the Hamas-led 7 October attacks on southern Israel.

The Prediction

Microsoft has said it will adopt a series of recommendations intended to improve the "effectiveness of our human-rights governance". The company will examine how it manages security clearances "in certain countries" and "make changes to ensure that our employees understand how to navigate security clearance requirements as part of their work for Microsoft".

The new measures include periodic reviews to check whether Microsoft's acceptable use policies are being followed by customers when there are "new political circumstances or changes to sensitive projects", as well as steps to strengthen human-rights due-diligence processes in "conflict-affected and high-risk areas".