Tech giants Google and Amazon agreed to use a secret code to evade legal obligations in countries around the world to serve Israeli interests, according to a report from the guardian has revealed.
The joint investigation, carried out with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and output in Hebrew Local callhighlights how a $1.2 billion cloud computing deal in 2021 (known as Project Nimbus) between the Israeli government and tech companies had an “unusual demand,” namely agreeing to use secret code as part of an agreement that would become known as the “wink mechanism.”
Project Nimbus was a joint contract that aimed to provide cloud computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technological services to the Israeli government and its military, which has faced condemnation for its war in Gaza, described by experts from the United Nations and several countries as a “genocide.”
US-based Google employees also held protests last year at the tech giant’s offices in New York City, California and Seattle to oppose the contract.
The unusual demand within the framework of the Nimbus Project, according to the Guardianwas born out of Israel’s concern that data it moves to the cloud platforms of global corporations could end up in the hands of foreign law enforcement authorities.
“Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist in investigations,” the report notes. However, “the process is often shrouded in secrecy.”
“Companies are often prevented from notifying the affected customer that information has been provided to them. This is because law enforcement has the power to demand it or because a court has ordered them to remain silent,” the report states.
But for Israel, losing control of its data to foreign authorities was a major concern. “So to deal with the threat, officials created a secret alert system: companies must send hidden signals in payments to the Israeli government, alerting it when it has revealed Israeli data to foreign courts or investigators.”
According to the report, “Israeli officials inserted into the Nimbus agreement a requirement for companies to send an encrypted message, a “wink,” to their government, revealing the identity of the country to which they had been forced to hand over Israeli data, but were prevented from saying so.”
The report refers to leaked documents from Israel’s Finance Ministry, which include a finalized version of the Nimbus deal that suggests the secret code would take the form of payments (called special compensation) made by the companies to the Israeli government.
Citing the documents, the Guardian details that payments must be made within 24 hours of the transfer of the information and correspond to the telephone code of the foreign country, for an amount between 1,000 and 9,999 shekels.
The report highlights the mechanism of the agreement as follows:
-
If Google or Amazon provide information to authorities in the United States, where the dialing code is +1, and are prevented from revealing their cooperation, they must send the Israeli government 1,000 shekels.
-
If, for example, companies receive a request for Israeli data from authorities in Italy, where the telephone code is +39, they must send 3,900 shekels.
-
If companies conclude that the terms of a gag order prevent them from even indicating which country has received the data, there is a fallback: The companies must pay 100,000 shekels ($30,000) to the Israeli government.
Additionally, “Israeli officials also feared a scenario in which their access to cloud providers’ technology could be blocked or restricted,” the report says.
“In particular, officials were concerned that activists and human rights groups could pressure Google and Amazon, or seek court orders in several European countries, to force them to end or limit their business with Israel if their technology was linked to human rights violations.”
He Guardian The investigation concerns government documents prepared after the deal was signed, in which Israel inserted controls into the Nimbus deal that Google and Amazon “appear to have accepted.”
“The documents state that the agreement prohibits companies from revoking or restricting Israel’s access to their cloud platforms, either due to changes in company policy or because they consider that Israel’s use of their technology violates their terms of service,” the report emphasizes.
He Guardian It also quotes an Israeli official familiar with the project as saying there can be “no restrictions” on the type of information moved to Google and Amazon cloud platforms, including military and intelligence data.
“The terms of the agreement as seen by the Guardian They claim that Israel has the right to migrate to the cloud or generate in the cloud any content data it wants,” according to the report.
“Israel inserted the provisions into the agreement to avoid a situation where companies decide that a certain customer is causing them harm and therefore stop selling services to them,” he said. Guardian cites a document as a note.
Last month, Microsoft disabled a set of cloud and artificial intelligence services used by a unit of the Israeli Defense Ministry after an internal review found preliminary evidence supporting media reports of a surveillance system in Gaza and the West Bank.
However, under the terms of the Nimbus agreement, “Google and Amazon are prohibited from taking actions that discriminate against the Israeli government,” he said. Guardian points out. “Doing so would imply economic sanctions for companies, as well as legal actions for breach of contract.”
The report quotes the Israeli Finance Ministry spokesperson as saying that Google and Amazon are “bound by strict contractual obligations that safeguard Israel’s vital interests,” adding that these agreements are confidential and “we will not legitimize the claims in the article by revealing private commercial terms.”
