By Lisa O’Carroll
Publication Date: 2025-12-04 14:59:00
Irish authorities have been formally asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by the Israeli Defense Forces.
The complaint has been made by the human rights group the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) to the Data Protection Commission, which has legal responsibility in Europe for overseeing all data processing in the European Union.
It follows revelations in August by the Guardian with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew outlet Local Call that a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls was being stored on Microsoft’s cloud service, Azure, as part of a mass surveillance operation by the Israeli military.
The ICCL alleges that the processing of the personal data “facilitated war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide by Israeli military”. Microsoft’s European headquarters are located in Ireland.
Joe O’Brien, the executive director of ICCL, said: “Microsoft’s technology has put millions of Palestinians…