Google officials were concerned about potential human rights violations that could be related to its $1.2 billion contract with the Israeli government even before signing the deal, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/technology/google-israel-contract-project-nimbus.html”>documents first reported by He New York Times today.
“Google Cloud services could be used or linked to the facilitation of human rights violations, including Israeli activity in the West Bank,” Google lawyers, members of the company's policy team and outside consultants wrote in documents prepared for executives. and reviewed by Times. The documents date back several months before Google announced the deal in May 2021 and show that the company was concerned whether the contract could be bad for its reputation.
“Google Cloud services could be used or linked to the facilitation of human rights violations”
The company has staunchly defended the deal since signing it in 2021, going so far as to fire dozens of employees who protested the contract they believed could involve them in violence against Palestinians. Now, it seems Google was weighing those risks as well, but ultimately decided to go ahead with the deal anyway.
Dubbed Project Nimbus, the contract gives the Israeli government access to cloud services from Google and amazon. Project Nimbus enabled the use of artificial intelligence tools to analyze and identify objects in images and videos, according to the Times. It also included video conferencing and “services for storing and analyzing large amounts of data.”
The most profitable part of the deal was $525 million from the Israeli Defense Ministry expected between 2021 and 2028, according to Times information. It's not a huge sum for Google, which reportedly made $258 billion in sales in 2021, but it was enough to give the company some leverage over other potential military and intelligence clients.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The edge. But in April, it said in an emailed statement that “the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Usage Policy acceptable. “This work is not directed toward military, classified, or highly sensitive workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.” A Google spokesperson provided a similar statement to the Times.
However, separate Israeli government contract documents recently <a target="_blank" href="https://theintercept.com/2024/12/02/google-project-nimbus-ai-israel/”>reported by The interception suggest that Project Nimbus is subject to “adjusted” terms of service rather than Google's general terms of service.
In the months leading up to the contract in 2021, Google reportedly sought opinions from consultants, including the company Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). The consultants apparently recommended that the contract prohibit the sale and use of its ai tools to the Israeli military “and other sensitive customers,” the report says. BSR reportedly recommended “due diligence” by Google to ensure its services were not being misused and that Google add its ai principles that prohibit surveillance or weapons to the contract.
In the end, the contract reportedly did not reflect those recommendations. However, the contract included the right to suspend customers for violating Google's rules. terms of service and acceptable use policy.
Before signing the agreement, the Times Says Google had additional concerns about the company itself facing legal dilemmas due to the contract:
The company was also concerned that it would be forced to accept “onerous” risks, such as the possibility of running into conflicts with foreign or international authorities if it sought Israeli data and that it might have to “violate international legal orders” under the terms of the deal, according to the documents.
Project Nimbus has become an even greater focus of tension within the company since the war between Israel and Hamas, which has killed more than 44,000 people in Gaza. Google has fired about 50 employees for their alleged participation in protests against Project Nimbus.
“We didn't come to Google to work on technology that kills. By entering into this contract, leadership has betrayed our trust, our ai principles, and our humanity,” Billy Van Der Laar, a Google software engineer, said in an emailed statement following April protests calling for Google to abandon Project Nimbus.
