Mass Surveillance 🚨: Irish Coastline & War Crimes? 🇵🇸

World News

Irish authorities have been formally asked to investigate Microsoft following allegations of unlawful data processing by the Israeli Defense Forces. The complaint, submitted to the Data Protection Commission, Europe’s legal body overseeing all data processing within the European Union, stems from revelations in August by The Guardian, alongside the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew outlet Local Call. These publications revealed that a massive collection of Palestinians’ phone calls was being stored on Microsoft’s cloud service, Azure, as part of a large-scale surveillance operation conducted by the Israeli military. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) alleges that this processing of personal data “facilitated war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by Israeli military.” Microsoft’s European headquarters are located in Ireland. According to Joe O’Brien, the ICCL’s executive director, “Microsoft’s technology has put millions of Palestinians in danger.” He stated that the cloud services “enabled real-world violence” and emphasized the “essential” need for the Data Protection Commission to “move quickly and decisively” given the “threat to life posed by the issues at the heart of this complaint.” O’Brien concluded by asserting that “When EU infrastructure is used to enable surveillance and targeting, the Irish Data Protection Commission must step in – and it must use its full powers to hold Microsoft to account.”

The Guardian reported in 2021 that Unit 8200, the Israeli military’s intelligence agency, had initiated discussions regarding the transfer of substantial volumes of highly classified intelligence material to Microsoft’s cloud service. Documents revealed that Unit 8200 utilized Microsoft’s storage facility to maintain an extensive archive of Palestinian communications, information which was subsequently used to facilitate targeted airstrikes and other military operations. Following these revelations, Microsoft ordered an immediate, external investigation to review its relationship with Unit 8200. The initial findings prompted the company to restrict Unit 8200’s access to certain cloud storage and AI services. The International Criminal Court of Light (ICCL) contends that Microsoft facilitated key elements of Israel’s military surveillance system, “Al Minasseq.” According to the ICCL, the alleged “removal” of records of intercepted phone calls from EU servers to Israel obscured evidence of illegal processing, hindering investigations within the EU. This activity, the ICCL claims, represented a violation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) concerning the processing of personal data. Utilizing Azure’s virtually unlimited storage capacity and computing power, Unit 8200 established a pervasive system allowing its intelligence officers to collect, playback, and analyze the content of cellular calls from an entire population. A spokesperson for the Data Protection Commissioner stated: “I can confirm that the DPC has received a complaint and it is currently under assessment.”