Google Worried It Couldn’t Control How Israel Uses Project Nimbus, Files Reveal

Before signing its lucrative and controversial Project Nimbus deal with Israel Google knew it couldn t control what the nation and its military would do with the powerful cloud-computing apparatus a confidential internal record obtained by The Intercept reveals The statement makes explicit the extent to which the tech giant understood the hazard of providing state-of-the-art cloud and machine learning tools to a nation long accused of systemic human rights violations and wartime atrocities Not only would Google be unable to fully monitor or prevent Israel from using its system to harm Palestinians but the record also notes that the contract could obligate Google to stonewall criminal investigations by other nations into Israel s use of its device And it would require close collaboration with the Israeli defense establishment including joint drills and intelligence sharing that was unprecedented in Google s deals with other nations A third-party consultant Google hired to vet the deal recommended that the company withhold machine learning and artificial intelligence tools from Israel because of these exposure factors Three international law experts who spoke with The Intercept commented that Google s awareness of the risks and foreknowledge that it could not conduct standard due diligence may pose legal liability for the company The rarely discussed question of legal culpability has grown in significance as Israel enters the third year of what has widely been acknowledged as a genocide in Gaza with shareholders pressing the company to conduct due diligence on whether its device contributes to human rights abuses They re aware of the threat that their products might be used for rights violations mentioned Le n Castellanos-Jankiewicz a lawyer with the Asser Institute for International and European Law in The Hague who reviewed portions of the assessment At the same time they will have limited ability to identify and ultimately mitigate these risks Google declined to answer any of a list of detailed questions sent by The Intercept about the company s visibility into Israel s use of its services or what control it has over Project Nimbus Company spokesperson Denise Duffy-Parkes instead responded with a verbatim copy of a comment that Google provided for a different article last year We ve been very clear about the Nimbus contract what it s directed to and the Terms of Operation and Acceptable Use Strategy that govern it Nothing has changed Portions of the internal document were first disclosed by the New York Times but Google s acknowledged inability to oversee Israel s usage of its tools has not previously been disclosed In January just three months before Google won the Nimbus contract alongside Amazon the company s cloud computing executives faced a dilemma The Project Nimbus contract then code-named Selenite at Google was a clear moneymaker According to the document which provides an assessment of the risks and rewards of this venture Google estimated a bespoke cloud evidence center for Israel subject to Israeli sovereignty and law could reap billion between and not only by selling to Israel s military but also its financial sector and corporations like pharmaceutical giant Teva But given decades of transgressions against international law by Israeli military and intelligence forces it was now supplying the company acknowledged that the deal was not without peril Google Cloud Services could be used for or linked to the facilitation of human rights violations including Israeli activity in the West Bank resulting in reputation harm the company warned In the statement Google acknowledged the urgency of mitigating these risks both to the human rights of Palestinians and Google s community image through due diligence and enforcement of the company s terms of institution which forbid certain acts of destruction and criminality But the overview makes clear a profound obstacle to any attempt at oversight The Project Nimbus contract is written in such a way that Google would be largely kept in the dark about what exactly its customer was up to and should any abuses ever come to light obstructed from doing anything about them Read our complete coverage Israel s War on Gaza The document lays out the limitations in stark terms Google would only be given very limited visibility into how its system would be used The company was not permitted to restrict the types of services and information that the Establishment including the Ministry of Defense and Israeli Precaution Agency chooses to migrate to the cloud Attempts to prevent Israeli military or spy agencies from using Google Cloud in techniques damaging to Google may be constrained by the terms of the tender as Customers are entitled to use services for any reason except violation of applicable law to the Customer the document says A later section of the statement notes Project Nimbus would be under the specific legal jurisdiction of Israel which like the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute and does not recognize the International Criminal Court Google must not respond to law enforcement disclosure requests without consultation and in particular cases approval from the Israeli functionaries which could cause us to breach international legal orders law Should Project Nimbus fall under legal scrutiny outside of Israel Google is required to notify the Israeli leadership as early as feasible and must Reject Appeal and Resist Foreign Cabinet Access Requests Google noted this could put the company at odds with foreign governments should they attempt to investigate Project Nimbus The contract requires Google to implement bespoke and strict processes to protect sensitive Regime records according to a subsequent internal document also viewed by The Intercept that was drafted after the company won its bid This obligation would stand even if it means violating the law Google must not respond to law enforcement disclosure requests without consultation and in particular cases approval from the Israeli agents which could cause us to breach international legal orders law The second analysis notes another onerous condition of the Nimbus deal Israel can extend the contract up to years with limited ability for Google to walk away The initial description notes that Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian would personally approve the contract with full understanding and acceptance of these risks before the company submitted its contract proposal Google did not make Kurian available for comment Business for Social Responsibility a human rights consultancy tapped by Google to vet the deal recommended the company withhold machine learning and AI technologies specifically from the Israeli military in order to reduce feasible harms the document notes It s unclear how the company could have heeded this advice considering the limitations in the contract The Intercept in disclosed that Google Cloud s full suite of AI tools was made available to Israeli state customers including the Ministry of Defense BSR did not respond to a request for comment The first internal Google assessment makes clear that the company worried how Israel might use its equipment If Google Cloud moves forward with the tender we recommend the business secure additional assurances to avoid Google Cloud services being used for or linked to the facilitation of human rights violations It s unclear if such assurances were ever offered Related U S Companies Honed Their Surveillance Tech in Israel Now It s Coming Home Google has long defended Project Nimbus by stating that the contract is not directed at highly sensitive classified or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services The internal materials note that Project Nimbus will entail nonclassified workloads from both the Ministry of Defense and Shin Bet the country s rough equivalent of the FBI Classified workloads one record states will be handled by a second separate contract code-named Natrolite Google did not respond when required about its involvement in the classified Natrolite project Both documents spell out that Project Nimbus entails a deep collaboration between Google and the Israeli shield state through the creation of a Classified Band within Google This crew is made up of Israeli nationals within the company with guard clearances designed to receive information by Israel that cannot be shared with Google Google s Classified Band will participate in specialized training with regime precaution agencies the first assessment states as well as joint drills and scenarios tailored to specific threats The level of cooperation between Google and the Israeli safety state appears to have been unprecedented at the time of the description The sensitivity of the information shared and general working model for providing it to a regime agency is not at the moment provided to any country by GCP the first document says Whether Google could ever pull the plug on Nimbus for violating the company rules or the law is unclear The company has claimed to The Intercept and other outlets that Project Nimbus is subject to its standard terms of use like any other Google Cloud customer But Israeli governing body documents contradict this showing the use of Project Nimbus services is constrained not by Google s normal terms but a secret amended framework A spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Finance approved to The Intercept that the amended Project Nimbus terms of use are confidential Shortly after Google won the Nimbus contract an attorney from the Israeli Ministry of Finance which oversaw the deal was required by reporters if the company could ever terminate arrangement to the regime According to the tender requirements the answer is no he replied In its comment Google points to a separate set of rules its Acceptable Use Guidelines that it says Israel must abide by These rules prohibit actions that violate or encourage the violation of the legal rights of others But the follow-up internal statement suggests this Acceptable Use Plan is geared toward blocking illegal content like sexual imagery or computer viruses not thwarting human rights abuses Before the ruling body agreed to abide by the AUP Google wrote there was a relatively low exposure of Israel violating the framework as the Israel establishment should not be posting harmful content itself The second internal assessment also says that if there is a conflict between Google s terms and the authorities s requirements which are extensive and often ambiguous then they will be interpreted in the way which is the most of advantageous to the customer International law is murky when it comes to the liability Google could face for supplying system to a authorities widely accused of committing a genocide and responsible for the occupation of the West Bank that is near-universally considered illegal Related Google Won t Say Anything About Israel Using Its Photo System to Create Gaza Hit List Legal culpability grows more ambiguous the farther you get from the actual act of killing Google doesn t furnish weapons to the military but it provides computing services that allow the military to function its ultimate function being of program the lethal use of those weapons Under international law only countries not corporations have binding human rights obligations But if Project Nimbus were to be tied directly to the facilitation of a war crime or other crime against humanity Google executives could hypothetically face criminal liability under customary international law or through a body like the ICC which has jurisdiction in both the West Bank and Gaza Civil lawsuits are another option Castellanos-Jankiewicz imagined a scenario in which a hypothetical plaintiff with access to the U S court system could sue Google over Project Nimbus for monetary damages for example Along with its work for the Israeli military Google through Project Nimbus sells cloud services to Israel Aerospace Industries the state-owned weapons maker whose munitions have helped devastate Gaza Another proven Project Nimbus customer is the Israel Land Authority a state agency that among other responsibilities distributes parcels of land in the illegally annexed and occupied West Bank An October judicial opinion issued by the International Court of Justice which arbitrates disputes between United Nations member states urged countries to take all reasonable measures to prevent corporations from doing anything that might aid the illegal occupation of the West Bank While nonbinding The advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice are generally perceived to be quite authoritative Ioannis Kalpouzos a visiting professor at Harvard Law and expert on human rights law and laws of war recounted The Intercept Both the very existence of the document and the language used suggest at least the awareness of the likelihood of violations Establishing Google s legal culpability in connection with the occupation of the West Bank or ongoing killing in Gaza entails a complex legal calculus experts explained hinging on the extent of its knowledge about how its products would be used or abused the foreseeability of crimes facilitated by those products and how directly they contributed to the perpetration of the crimes Both the very existence of the document and the language used suggest at least the awareness of the likelihood of violations Kalpouzos disclosed While there have been a sparse instances of corporate executives facing local criminal charges in connections with human rights atrocities liability stemming from a civil lawsuit is more likely reported Castellanos-Jankiewicz A hypothetical plaintiff might have a circumstance if they could demonstrate that Google knew or should have known that there was a danger that this solution was going to be used or is being used he explained in the commission of serious human rights violations war crimes crimes against humanity or genocide Getting their date in court before an American judge however would be another matter The Alien Tort Statute allows federal courts in the United States to take on lawsuits by foreign nationals regarding alleged violations of international law but has been narrowed considerably over the years and whether U S corporations could even be sued under the statute in the first place remains undecided History has seen scant scant examples of corporate accountability in connection with crimes against humanity In IBM Germany donated million to a Holocaust reparations fund in connection with its wartime role supplying computing services to the Third Reich In the early s plaintiffs in the U S sued dozens of multinational corporations for their work with apartheid South Africa including the sale of essential tools and services Castellanos-Jankiewicz reported The Intercept though these suits were thrown out following a Supreme Court decision Most of just now Lafarge a French cement company pleaded guilty in both the U S and France following criminal investigations into its business in ISIS-controlled Syria There is essentially no legal precedent as to whether the provision of system to a military committing atrocities makes the utility company complicit in those acts For any court potentially reviewing this an key legal standard Castellanos-Jankiewicz disclosed is whether Google knew or should have known that its equipment that its system was being either used to commit the atrocities or enabling the commission of the atrocities The Nimbus deal was inked before Hamas attacked Israel on October igniting a war that has killed tens of thousands of civilians and reduced Gaza to rubble But that doesn t mean the company wouldn t face scrutiny for continuing to provide organization If the pitfall of misuse of a device grows over time the company necessities to react accordingly declared Andreas Sch ller co-director of the international crimes and accountability operation at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights Ignorance and an omission of any form of reaction to an increasing threat in connection with the use of the product leads to a higher liability menace for the company Though corporations are generally exempt from human rights obligations under international frameworks Google says it adheres to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights The document while voluntary and not legally binding lays out an array of practices multinational corporations should follow to avoid culpability in human rights violations Among these corporate responsibilities is assessing actual and foreseen human rights impacts integrating and acting upon the findings tracking responses and communicating how impacts are addressed The board of directors at Alphabet Google s parent entity in recent times recommended voting against a shareholder proposal to conduct an independent third-party audit of the processes the company uses to determine whether customers use of products and services for surveillance censorship and or military purposes contributes to human rights harms in conflict-affected and high-risk areas The proposal cites among other threat areas the Project Nimbus contract In rejecting the proposal the board touted its existing human rights oversight processes and cites the U N Guiding Principles and Google s AI Principles as reason no further oversight is necessary In February Google amended this latter document to remove prohibitions against weapons and surveillance The UN guiding principles plain and simple require companies to conduct due diligence revealed Castellanos-Jankiewicz Google acknowledging that they will not be able to conduct these screenings periodically flies against the whole idea of due diligence It sounds like Google is giving the Israeli military a blank check to basically use their apparatus for whatever they want The post Google Worried It Couldn t Control How Israel Uses Project Nimbus Files Reveal appeared first on The Intercept