DUBAI: Tech giants Google and Amazon agreed to use a secret code to warn their client, the Israeli government, if their data was being handed over to foreign law enforcement, according to a joint investigation by The Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call.
The agreement was part of a $1.2 billion cloud-computing deal inked in 2021, known as Project Nimbus. It stemmed from Israel’s concerns that the data it stores on these tech companies’ cloud platforms could end up in the hands of foreign law enforcement authorities.
Tech companies must comply with requests from law enforcement and security agencies to hand over customer data for investigative purposes. Moreover, they are often prohibited from informing the customer that their data has been disclosed.
Therefore, Israeli officials developed the so-called “winking” mechanism, under which Google and Amazon would send secret signals, hidden in payments, to the Israeli government, revealing the identity of the country to which they had been compelled to hand over Israeli data.
According to leaked documents from Israel’s Finance Ministry, which include a finalized version of the Nimbus agreement, payments must be made “within 24 hours of the information being transferred” and correspond to the telephone dialing code of the foreign country, amounting to sums between 1,000 ($308) and 9,999 shekels.
