Oracle opened the first of two planned public cloud centers in Israel on Wednesday, enabling companies and other Israeli customers to keep their data on local servers rather than rely on other countries.

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The underground data center is nine floors – about 50 meters (164 feet) – below one of Jerusalem's technology parks. Designed to operate in the face of potential terror acts, the center is estimated to have cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

"This facility ... can withstand a rocket direct hit, a missile direct hit or even a car bomb – and  the services will keep running with customers not even knowing that something so horrible has happened," Eran Feigenbaum, Oracle's Israel manager, told Reuters.

The site, which has its own generators in case of power loss, is one of 30 such cloud centers globally. Until now, the closest to Israel was in the United Arab Emirates. Oracle also has a research and development center in Israel.

Feigenbaum said there will be a second data center in Israel as part of a plan to open 14 more centers by the end of 2022 to meet growing demand from Israeli technology companies and serve as a back-up to ensure data stays within Israel's borders.

Oracle has already signed up a number of customers in Israel, Feigenbaum said.

The company has said its cloud operation has been gaining momentum globally in the past year by adding video conferencing platforms Zoom and 8X8 in addition to being a security partner of the US government.

For Israeli companies, having a local cloud could reduce costs because they would have the ability to rent storage instead of building their own servers or relying on other countries.

"They will not have to move to Silicon Valley or other places. They can do everything from here, with strong back-up and short distances," said Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel.

"It's good for us to keep our own information inside Israel."

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The study tracked over 350,000 tweets over the course of one month in an attempt to determine popular sentiment regarding social media on a state-by-state basis.

Statements like "I hate social media," "I hate Facebook," "I hate Instagram," "I hate twitter," "I hate Snapchat," "I hate TikTok," etc. were compiled in order to determine the level public enmity relating to the platforms, and were found to be particularly popular among Michiganders.

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According to Channel 13, which did not cite a source, the program was approved by top Justice Ministry officials, including Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit. The Shin Bet reportedly received permission to operate the program for six months, after which the agency was allowed to proceed with it for another 2.5 years. It is also possible that the tracking is still in place, the report said.

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What, if any, oversight measure are in place is unclear.

The report did not go into detail about what type of data the Shin Bet was gathering, and said that the agency mined data from cellular providers' databases – allegedly without informing them or obtaining permission.

The Justice Ministry issued a statement in response to the report: "The methods the Shin Bet uses in its fight against terrorism and in general are by law classified, and exposing them could cause serious harm to national security. Often, legal issues pertaining to the agency's methods are presented to the attorney general, or one of his representatives, to be evaluated and approved."

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Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg participated in a Tel Aviv conference to announce the opening of Playground, Facebook Israel's new physical project space designed for startups, entrepreneurs, and communities.

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While addressing the conference, Sandberg said that the social network was committed to "invest in safety in the lead-up to elections in Israel."

That included "minimizing potential harm, working with third-party fact-checking organizations and setting new standards for ads transparency," Facebook said in a statement about the event, which was closed to journalists.

Sandberg's visit to the Israeli commercial hub came a day after it emerged the platform had paid hundreds of contractors to listen to and transcribe snippets of users' conversations, amid heightened scrutiny of its data collection practices.

Facebook acknowledged the transcriptions, first reported by Bloomberg, telling the news agency that they were made with users' permission, but that the practice has nonetheless been stopped.

Facebook recently settled a record $5 billion fine with the US Federal Trade Commission for misusing users' private data.

Following heightened concern over the use of the platform to spread fake stories, Facebook has signed contracts with several media outlets aimed at fact-checking widely shared content.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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