Microsoft says it has found no evidence that the Israeli military has used its Azure and AI technology to harm Palestinian civilians or anyone else in Gaza. The software maker says it has “conducted an internal review and engaged an external firm,” to perform a review, after some Microsoft employees have repeatedly called on the company to cut its contracts with the Israeli government.
Microsoft says that its relationship with the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) is “structured as a standard commercial relationship,” and that it has “found no evidence that Microsoft’s Azure and AI technologies, or any of our other software, have been used to harm people or that IMOD has failed to comply with our terms of service or our AI Code of Conduct.” Microsoft’s AI code of conduct requires that customers use human oversight and access controls to ensure cloud and AI services don’t inflict harm “in any way that is prohibited by law.”
The review process included ‘“interviewing dozens of employees and assessing documents,” looking for evidence that Microsoft technologies were being used to target or harm anyone in Gaza. However, the company notes that it “does not have visibility into how customers use our software on their own servers or other devices,” so the evidence to inform its review is clearly very limited in scope.
The review comes just weeks after two former Microsoft employees disrupted the company’s 50th-anniversary event, with one calling Microsoft’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, a “war profiteer” and demanding that Microsoft “stop using AI for genocide in our region.” A second protester interrupted Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former CEO Steve Ballmer, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later on in the event.
Both former Microsoft employees also sent separate emails to thousands of coworkers, protesting the company providing software, cloud services, and consulting services to the Israeli military. The first protester, Ibtihal Aboussad, was fired, and the second, Vaniya Agrawal, was dismissed shortly after putting in her two weeks’ notice. Both are associated with No Azure for Apartheid, a group of current and former Microsoft employees rallying against Microsoft’s contracts with Israel.
The group accuses Microsoft of “supporting and enabling an apartheid state,“ by not suspending sales of cloud and AI services to Israel, like it did to Russia when it invaded Ukraine. It has also highlighted reports from The Guardian and the Associated Press, based on leaked documents, that detail the Israeli military’s increased use of Azure and OpenAI technology to gather information through mass surveillance and use AI tools to transcribe and translate phone calls, texts, and audio messages. Microsoft also reportedly supplied 19,000 hours of engineering support and consultancy services to the Israeli military, in a deal that’s said to be valued at around $10 million.
“It is worth noting that militaries typically use their own proprietary software or applications from defense-related providers for the types of surveillance and operations that have been the subject of our employees’ questions,” says Microsoft in its blog post. “Microsoft has not created or provided such software or solutions to the IMOD.”
Hossam Nasr, an organizer of No Azure for Apartheid, has taken issue with Microsoft’s statement, saying it’s “filled with both lies and contradictions” in an interview with GeekWire.
“There is no form of selling technology to an army that is plausibly accused of genocide — whose leaders are wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court — that would be ethical,” says Nasr. “That’s the premise that we reject.” Nasr also highlighted that Microsoft’s statement mentions Israel multiple times, but “not once did they name Palestinians or Palestinian people or Palestine” in the blog post. “I think that still speaks to where Microsoft’s business interests truly lie.”
