{"id":253949,"date":"2025-09-25T16:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T16:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253949\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T16:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T16:02:09","slug":"microsoft-blocks-the-israeli-military-from-some-cloud-and-ai-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253949\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft\u00a0blocks the Israeli military from some cloud and AI services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft is blocking the Israeli military\u2019s access to cloud and AI services that have been used in the mass surveillance of Palestinian civilians. Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith announced the decision in an internal memo<\/a> to employees on Thursday, after The Guardian and others reported<\/a> last month that the Israeli government stored recordings and data on Azure of up to \u201ca million calls an hour\u201d made by Palestinians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile our review is ongoing, we have found evidence that supports elements of The Guardian\u2019s reporting,\u201c says Smith. \u201dWe therefore have informed Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) of Microsoft\u2019s decision to cease and disable specified IMOD subscriptions and their services, including their use of specific cloud storage and AI services and technologies. We have reviewed this decision with IMOD and the steps we are taking to ensure compliance with our terms of service, focused on ensuring our services are not used for mass surveillance of civilians.\u201c<\/p>\n

The block applies to \u201ca set of services\u201d used by a unit within the IMOD, and Smith makes it clear that Microsoft \u201cdo not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians.\u201d This move doesn\u2019t impact other contracts that Microsoft holds with the Israeli government, and Smith notes it \u201cdoes not impact the important work that Microsoft continues to do to protect the cybersecurity of Israel and other countries in the Middle East, including under the Abraham Accords.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian reports<\/a> that the Israeli military has already moved as much as 8TB data off of Azure, just days after the original reports surfaced last month. The Israeli military is reportedly planning to transfer the data to Amazon Web Services. We\u2019ve reached out to Amazon to comment on this report.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s review of the use of its Azure cloud and AI technologies by the Israeli military follows reporting by The Guardian and pressure from current and former Microsoft employees. Microsoft has fired five employees<\/a> in connection with protests over its Israeli government contracts at its headquarters recently. Protests last month included encampments<\/a> and a group that managed to gain access to a company building<\/a> and live stream themselves inside the office of Microsoft president Brad Smith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft is blocking the Israeli military\u2019s access to cloud and AI services that have been used in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":253950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,252,50,153,242,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-253949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-microsoft","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-policy","13":"tag-tech","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115265781375247389","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}