{"id":216257,"date":"2025-12-05T05:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/216257\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T05:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:17:09","slug":"complaint-filed-against-microsoft-ireland-alleging-it-facilitated-mass-processing-of-illegal-surveillance-data-on-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/216257\/","title":{"rendered":"Complaint filed against Microsoft Ireland alleging it facilitated mass processing of \u2018illegal\u2019 surveillance data on Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish human rights campaigners have sent internal Microsoft<\/a> files on dealings with Israel<\/a>\u2019s military to regulators in a complaint alleging the company\u2019s Irish business facilitated the mass processing of \u201cillegal\u201d surveillance data on Palestinians. <\/p>\n

The complaint by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties<\/a> (ICCL) was made to the Data Protection Commission<\/a> (DPC) in Dublin, the body responsible for enforcing EU data protection law on Big Tech groups such as Microsoft which have their European headquarters in Ireland. <\/p>\n

In its DPC submissions, the council said it had a mandate to make the complaint on behalf of Palestinian residents of Gaza<\/a> and the West Bank<\/a> and EU \u201ccitizens\/residents\u201d who have frequent communications with people in the Occupied Territories. <\/p>\n

\u201cMicrosoft\u2019s technology has put millions of Palestinians in danger,\u201d said ICCL executive director Joe O\u2019Brien, a former Green TD.<\/p>\n

The complaint alleges grave violations of European privacy law, saying Microsoft processing facilitated the killing of civilians in Gaza by Israel. Such processing \u201ccontinues to enable mass surveillance of individuals in the entire occupied Palestinian territory\u201d and the illegal occupation of lands, it adds. <\/p>\n

Documents submitted to the DPC include internal screengrabs from Microsoft systems, provided by whistleblowers, that purport to show how the company helped Israeli officials organise the bulk transfer of huge surveillance files from European servers to Israel in August. <\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s alleged assistance to the Israeli ministry of defence (IMOD) included a big increase to storage quotas that govern how much data could be sent to and from storage accounts at any one time. <\/p>\n

The transfer is alleged to have started one day after an August 6th report in the Guardian set out how Israel\u2019s ministry of defence used Microsoft\u2019s cloud storage service Azure to host vast surveillance records on Palestinian phone calls, text messages and voicemails using Irish and Dutch data centres. <\/p>\n

The screengrabs were from \u201ca Microsoft system about processing for which Microsoft Ireland is responsible\u201d, the ICCL said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Microsoft Ireland has cut 250 jobs since last summerOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

According to the complaint, Microsoft whistleblowers are available to speak with the DPC \u201cto answer any questions related to the documents\u201d and \u201cprovide insights\u201d into company operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not abstract data-protection failures \u2013 they are violations that have enabled real-world violence,\u201d Mr O\u2019Brien said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen EU infrastructure is used to enable surveillance and targeting, the Irish Data Protection Commission must step in \u2013 and it must use its full powers to hold Microsoft to account.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ICCL claimed Microsoft facilitated the capabilities of the Israeli defence ministry \u201cto mass remove storage of surveillance data out of Europe to Israel, and only after that facilitation was complete did Microsoft launch an investigation\u201d on August 15th.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, Microsoft only launched an investigation into the IMOD\u2019s usage once it had effectively hindered its own capabilities to investigate, and once they ensured that European governments could not seize or audit the surveillance data, effectively concealing evidence from European governments\/regulators,\u201d the ICCL said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IMOD would not have been able to bulk transfer this vast amount of data out of Europe to Israel without Microsoft increasing the storage quotas. In other words, Microsoft had control over whether this large amount of surveillance data could be transferred in a short period of time out of Europe to Israel. Microsoft used its control to increase IMOD\u2019s storage quotas to facilitate the means of data processing in a transfer out of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Israeli minister clashes with Ireland\u2019s envoy to Tel Aviv over Herzog Park name rowOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Microsoft disputed ICCL claims about the effectiveness of its own inquiries, saying its investigation \u201cled to a decision to cease some services in September\u201d and ultimately to the customer \u2013 which the company did not name \u2013 storing the data with another provider.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur customers own their data and the actions taken by this customer to transfer their data in August was their choice,\u201d Microsoft said. \u201cThese actions in no way impeded our investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

A DPC spokesman said: \u201cI can confirm that the DPC has received a complaint of this nature, and it is currently under assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 25-page complaint was made under the EU\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a body of law in force since 2018 which ramped up public oversight of companies that collate online data. <\/p>\n

The ICCL wants the DPC to consider administrative fines against Microsoft at the \u201cupper tier\u201d of the levels allowed under the GDPR because of \u201cthe scale and gravity of the infringements\u201d and what is described as reckless disregard for fundamental rights. <\/p>\n

The GDPR empowers regulators to impose fines up to 4 per cent of a company\u2019s annual global turnover. In its most recent fiscal year, Microsoft reported revenues of $281.7 billion (\u20ac241.5 billion). <\/p>\n

The company is one of the largest and longest-established US multinationals in Ireland, with more than 6,000 staff. Irish subsidiaries of Microsoft paid $41 billion in dividends to the parent company in its 2024 financial year and the first months of 2025. <\/p>\n

When asked about the ICCL\u2019s complaint, Israel\u2019s defence ministry said, \u201cWe will not comment.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish human rights campaigners have sent internal Microsoft files on dealings with Israel\u2019s military to regulators in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,7242,18,13,14,3761,6,19,17,66421,71,11,12,15,16,305,5,7,8,1918],"class_list":{"0":"post-216257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-data-protection-commission","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-gaza-strip","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-irish-council-for-civil-liberties","19":"tag-israel","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-microsoft","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories","28":"tag-west-bank"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115665269083456038","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}