Microsoft has reportedly cut off Israeli military access to its Azure cloud and AI technology that was being used to monitor millions of Palestinian civilians’ phone calls, according to a new report from The Guardian.
Israel’s use of Microsoft’s software was at the heart of calls to boycott the Redmond-based tech company, a movement that called on consumers to cancel Xbox Game Pass and refrain from buying or playing the company’s games and gaming consoles.
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), the pro-Palestinian human rights movement focused on pressuring Israel to comply with international law by promoting boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the country and its economic partners, added Microsoft to its list of targets in April.
“Microsoft partners with the apartheid regime of Israel and its prison system,” the Palestinian BDS National Committee said at the time. “It provides the Israeli military with Azure cloud and AI services that are central to accelerating Israel’s genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip. After 34 years of deep complicity with Israel’s military, the Israeli army relies heavily on Microsoft to meet technological requirements of its genocide and apartheid regime.”
According to The Guardian’s sources, Microsoft told Israeli officials last week that the military’s elite spy agency, Unit 8200, had violated its terms of service “by storing the vast trove of surveillance data in its Azure cloud platform.”
Microsoft president Brad Smith reportedly told employees of the decision via email, writing that the company had “ceased and disabled a set of services to a unit within the Israel Ministry of Defense.”
“We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians,” Smith said.
Exactly how far Microsoft’s restrictions on the Israeli military extend and whether this action will satisfy BDS movement organizers is unclear. The Guardian reports that the Xbox-maker’s decision to pull access to its tech from Unit 8200 “has not affected Microsoft’s wider commercial relationship” with the Israel Defense Forces.
Polygon has reached out to the BDS organization for comment and will update this story when it responds.
