Why have Spain, Italy sent ships to assist the Gaza flotilla? Israel's mass surveillance: Microsoft blocks the army from using its software United States tech giant Microsoft has cancelled some services it provides to the Israeli military over concerns it is violating its terms of service by using the firm's cloud computing software to spy on millions of Palestinians, the company's vice chair and president Brad Smith confirmed. Smith wrote in a Thursday blog post that the company had "ceased and disabled a set of services" to a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence in response to an August 6 joint investigation by The Guardian newspaper, +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call. Unit 8200 is the Israeli military's elite cyber warfare unit responsible for clandestine operations, including collecting signal intelligence and surveillance. The investigation by journalists revealed that following a 2021 meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Unit 8200's leader Yossi Sariel, an agreement was reached to collaborate on moving large volumes of sensitive intelligence material into the company's Azure platform.

It has been more than five months since the United States sanctioned the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, and stories about the use and abuse of its Pegasus product continue to break. As various organisations try to push for further measures against Israel for supplying human rights abusers with this tool to further their violations, it is important to remember that Israeli military and surveillance technology is first developed for and tested on Palestinians, before being exported. Unsurprisingly, Pegasus has already been found on the phones of six Palestinian human rights activists, one of whom is now suing NSO in France. Another target happened to be my friend and colleague whose field of work is directly connected to the relationship between Palestine and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The thought that the Israelis have had full access to our personal conversations and exchanges in group chats has been quite disturbing, to say the least. However, this is not the first time Israel has violated my privacy and it won't be the last.

China's top security officer has revealed plans to use artificial intelligence to predict crime, terrorism and social unrest before it happens. Meng Jianzhu, the head of the Chinese Community Party's central commission for political and legal affairs, said the government would start to use AI software which uses machine learning, data mining and computer modelling to predict where crime and disorder is likely to occur. "Artificial intelligence can complete tasks with a precision and speed unmatchable by humans, and will drastically improve the predictability, accuracy and efficiency of social management," Mr Meng told colleagues at a meeting in Beijing on Friday. He said security forces should look for patterns in data about terror attacks and build an analysis model to help authorities predict where the attack may strike, Chinese news website thepaper.cn Mr Meng also called for all elements of the Chinese state and the party to share data with each other and for renewed efforts to integrate surveillance footage systems across the country.