Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly met with commanders from Israel’s military surveillance agency Unit 8200 and personally approved a controversial project that has sparked internal resistance within the company. The arrangement allows Israel to store millions of Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers as part of an extensive surveillance operation that began in 2022.
According to reporting by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call, Nadella’s joining a growing list of tech CEOs facing public backlash provided Israel with a customized and segregated area within the Azure platform to house these recordings. The surveillance system captures phone calls made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank without their knowledge or consent, with sources indicating the project aimed to record “a million calls an hour.”
