In 2021, Josi Sariel, then at the head of the 8200 unit, the Israeli elite structure of military intelligence, established cooperation with Satya Nadella, the president of Microsoft. According to “The Guardian”, the goal was to provide the unit with access to the Azure cloud, which allows you to store an almost unlimited amount of information. As a result, millions of recordings of Palestinian telephone conversations were to receive European servers every day.
Read also: Crisis in the Israeli command. At stake hostages' life and the future of Gaza
Surveillance of civilians
Microsoft emphasized that his boss, satya nadella, was not aware of the nature of the stored data. However, according to sources in the 8200 unit, Azure has significantly improved the preparation of Israeli military operations in regions such as the Gaza Strep or the West Brzeg Jordan. Israel, having control over telecommunications infrastructure in Palestinian areas, has already intercepted phone calls, but thanks to the cloud Azure has gained the opportunity to easily search and play conversations of any civilians.
Reports of storing confidential data in Microsoft data centers in the Netherlands and Ireland come from the leakage of the technological giant files. Meanwhile, the issue of the location of these servers introduces additional doubts regarding legal regulations and the compliance of activities with European standards of personal data protection. The case arouses broad interest and provokes questions about technology ethics in armed conflicts.
