Anticipating Perils for Palestinians through Microsoft's Predictive Tech

Anticipating Perils for Palestinians through Microsoft's Predictive Tech

In a controversial partnership, Microsoft's Azure cloud platform has been instrumental in Israel's military intelligence unit, Unit 8200's, vast surveillance apparatus targeting Palestinians. The collaboration, which began in 2022, has raised serious concerns about corporate complicity in human rights abuses and surveillance overreach.

The system, which processes over a million calls per hour, leverages Azure's vast storage and computing power to archive enormous amounts of intelligence data. Estimated at around 11,500 terabytes as of mid-2025, this data is equivalent to roughly 200 million hours of audio. This scale far exceeded Unit 8200's previous technical capabilities due to limitations in their own military servers.

The surveillance trove has been used operationally to facilitate lethal Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, influence military decisions, and conduct arrests across Palestinian territories. These implications highlight a direct connection between Microsoft's technology and actions considered by some observers as part of Israel's ongoing conflict and control over Palestinians.

Microsoft denies knowledge that its technology was being used specifically for civilian surveillance or harm, though leaked documents and interviews with intelligence sources contest this, indicating senior-level endorsement and active technological support for Unit 8200’s mass data collection efforts. Several Microsoft engineers who worked on the project reportedly had prior ties to Unit 8200, facilitating the collaboration.

The partnership involves the storage of Israeli military data on Microsoft Azure servers located in the Netherlands and Ireland. The Israeli military's Unit 8200 reportedly plans to migrate up to 70% of its data, including classified and top-secret information, to Microsoft Azure in the long term.

Unit 8200 has developed a system called "Noisy Message" that scans, stores, and assigns a risk assessment to all text messages between Palestinians in the West Bank based on an automated analysis of suspicious words. The system identifies messages where weapons are discussed or the desire to die is expressed.

Microsoft has commissioned an external review following earlier revelations about the use of its products in the Gaza war. The review found no evidence that Microsoft's Azure and AI technologies were used "to target or harm people in the Gaza conflict." However, the investigation does not provide information about any consequences or responses from Microsoft regarding these allegations.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is reported to have met with the then-commander of Unit 8200, Yossi Sariel, in late 2021, and allegedly supported a project for Unit 8200 to utilize a segregated and customized area in Microsoft's Azure cloud. The reported partnership is a multi-year partnership.

The investigation, conducted by Yuval Abraham, a director awarded at the Berlin Film Festival, in collaboration with Israeli-Palestinian magazine +972 and Local Call, uncovers an unknown surveillance system of the Israeli Unit 8200. The report by "The Guardian" further sheds light on this controversial partnership.

It is important to note that Microsoft operates its largest data center outside the US in Israel, on which the military, police, and prison services in Israel rely. The company has stated that it has agreed with the Israeli military that the systems should not be used for selecting targets for lethal attacks. However, the use of the data for other purposes remains a matter of concern.

This collaboration between Microsoft and Israel's military is viewed as a lucrative business opportunity, with executives expecting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and a significant brand boost for Azure. Yet, the ethical implications and potential human rights abuses associated with this partnership cannot be overlooked.

1. The collaboration between Microsoft and Israel's military intelligence unit, Unit 8200, involves the storage of Israeli military data on Microsoft Azure servers, with plans to migrate up to 70% of Unit 8200's data to Azure in the long term.
2. Microsoft has developed a partnership with Unit 8200, which has been instrumental in Unit 8200's vast surveillance apparatus targeting Palestinians, utilizing Microsoft's Azure cloud platform for data-and-cloud-computing needs.
3. The use of Azure's technology in Unit 8200's surveillance operations raises concerns about corporate complicity in human rights abuses and surveillance overreach, particularly given the system's role in facilitating lethal Israeli airstrikes, military decisions, and arrests in Palestinian territories.
4. The investigation conducted by Yuval Abraham uncovers an unknown surveillance system developed by Unit 8200, which leverages artificial-intelligence technology to scan, store, and assess the risk of text messages between Palestinians based on their content.

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