Microsoft has said it will tighten human-rights controls when working with national security agencies after an inquiry into how the Israeli military used its cloud technology for the mass surveillance of Palestinians.
On Thursday, Microsoft announced the completion of the inquiry and a series of new measures that include changes to how the company oversees employees with security clearances issued by foreign governments.
Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call revealing how the Israeli military used the company’s cloud to store a vast trove of intercepted Palestinian phone calls.
Shortly after the inquiry was launched, Microsoft terminated the Israeli military’s access to cloud and AI services used to support the surveillance project after initial findings showed its spy agency, Unit 8200, had violated the company’s terms of service.
In a summary of the inquiry’s outcome, Microsoft said its “factual findings remain the same” and it would adopt a series of recommendations intended to improve the “effectiveness of our human-rights governance”.
Described as a “final update” on the situation, the announcement attempts to draw a line under a challenging episode for Microsoft that placed a spotlight on the role played by its technology in the Israeli military’s bombardment of Gaza and operations in the occupied West Bank.
The Guardian investigation last year found Unit 8200 had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to operate an indiscriminate system that allowed its intelligence officers to collect, play back and analyse the content of millions of Palestinian cellular phone calls every day.
The revelations prompted concerns at a senior level within Microsoft that some employees at its Israeli subsidiary had not been fully transparent with headquarters about their knowledge of how Unit 8200 used the company’s technology.
Sources familiar with the inquiry said it had examined how some of Microsoft’s Tel Aviv-based employees had felt conflicting loyalties between their obligations to the company and their support for the Israeli military after the Hamas-led 7 October attacks on southern Israel.
Last month, Microsoft said the head of its Israeli business would leave the company. According to local media reports, the departure followed a controversy at the subsidiary relating to violations of Microsoft’s code of ethics. Several other managers were also said to have exited the company.
There is no mention of the staff departures in Microsoft’s summary of the inquiry. The five-page document outlines measures the company said it would adopt, such as changes to the way it vets “national security-related” business prior to contracts being signed.
It also said the company would examine how it manages security clearances “in certain countries” and “make changes to ensure that our employees understand how to navigate security clearance requirements as part of their work for Microsoft”.
The Guardian has previously reported that several employees involved in managing projects with Unit 8200 had served in or were reservists of the elite surveillance unit, which is equivalent in its remit to the US National Security Agency.
Other measures include periodic reviews to check whether Microsoft’s acceptable use policies are being followed by customers when there are “new political circumstances or changes to sensitive projects”, as well as steps to strengthen human-rights due-diligence processes in “conflict-affected and high-risk areas”.
Microsoft has previously said senior executives such as its chief executive, Satya Nadella, were unaware Unit 8200 was using Azure to store intercepted Palestinian communications. It has said it “does not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians”.
The disclosures, however, sparked protests at its US headquarters and one of its European datacentres, and fuelled demands by shareholders, NGOs and a worker-led campaign group, No Azure for Apartheid, for transparency over its business with Israeli military customers.
This week, the group staged a fresh wave of protests at an annual conference in San Francisco where the company announced new products. Outside the venue, protesters unfurled signs that read: “Microsoft powers genocide” and “cut ties with Israel now”.
