V-MIL Audit: Waze Mobile Ltd.

Audit Phase: V-MIL Target Entity: Waze Mobile Ltd. (subsidiary of Google LLC) Date: 2026-05-01 Corporate Context: Waze Mobile Ltd. is an Israeli-founded mobile navigation application company acquired by Google LLC in 2013 for approximately $1.3 billion¹. It operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Google LLC, which is itself a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Waze’s core product is a free, crowdsourced navigation application distributed through consumer app stores globally. The company was founded in Israel and retains operational and engineering presence there¹².

Direct Defence Contracting & Procurement

Ministry of Defence & IDF Contracts

No publicly available, verified contract, tender award, framework agreement, or memorandum of understanding between Waze Mobile Ltd. and the Israeli Ministry of Defence (IMOD), the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Israel Prison Service, or Israel Border Police has been identified in any procurement registry, corporate disclosure, or investigative report¹. No public evidence identified.

The most proximate documented interaction between Waze and the IDF is the October 2023 disabling of live traffic data in Israel and the Gaza region³⁴⁵. Multiple press outlets confirmed that Waze (alongside Google Maps and Apple Maps) disabled real-time crowd-sourced incident and traffic features following a government and/or military request³⁴⁵. The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre logged this event explicitly but did not characterise it as arising from a procurement contract⁶. This action constitutes a compliance response by a commercial firm to a state or military request — not a formal supply or service agreement.

Waze’s parent company, Google LLC, holds the Project Nimbus cloud infrastructure contract, announced in 2021 and valued at approximately $1.2 billion jointly with Amazon Web Services, with the Israeli government including the Ministry of Defence⁷⁸. As a wholly owned Google subsidiary, Waze operates on Google’s global infrastructure. However, no public evidence specifically identifies Waze data, APIs, or services as a named deliverable within the Project Nimbus contract scope⁷⁸. The contract’s technical annexes have not been made public⁸.

Defence Trade Directory Listings

No evidence places Waze Mobile Ltd. in SIBAT (Israel’s Defence Export and Defence Cooperation Directorate) listings, international defence exhibition catalogues (DSEI, Eurosatory, ISDEF), or any Israeli or foreign defence procurement registry. No public evidence identified.

Press Releases & Official Announcements

No corporate press release, Israeli government announcement, or defence trade press report documents a formal defence cooperation agreement, joint venture, or partnership between Waze Mobile Ltd. and any Israeli defence entity¹³. The October 2023 traffic data disabling was covered in the technology and general press³⁴⁵ but was not announced through any formal government or corporate defence cooperation mechanism.

Dual-Use Products & Tactical Variants

Militarised Product Lines

Waze does not manufacture or publicly market a ruggedised, tactical, mil-spec, or defence-grade variant of its navigation application. The application is a consumer-facing, free-to-use mobile navigation product distributed through commercial app stores¹. No public evidence of a purpose-built military product line has been identified.

The Jerusalem Post reported in 2024 that the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) developed a separate GPS navigation application for IDF ground forces operating in Gaza, described as functioning similarly to Waze in its user-interface conventions and incorporating Blue Force Tracking and hazard alerting capabilities⁹. Critically, the Jerusalem Post characterises this as a Shin Bet-developed tool — not a Waze product and not a licensed derivative of the Waze application⁹. The article does not disclose the source of map or traffic data used by this application. Any inference that this application was built on Waze datasets or APIs is not supported by the cited source and accordingly cannot be treated as a verified finding.

Civilian-to-Military Distinction: The 2016 Qalandia Incident

The 2016 Qalandia refugee camp incident, documented by The Guardian¹⁰ and The Forward¹¹, establishes that Israeli soldiers were using the standard commercial Waze application for navigational routing during an administrative military movement into the West Bank. The soldiers’ vehicle entered the Qalandia refugee camp following Waze routing, triggering a confrontation¹⁰. Then-Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon publicly criticised this practice, explicitly stating that soldiers should not be using civilian navigation applications for operational movements¹⁰¹¹. His statement implicitly confirms that the use was informal and not officially sanctioned — representing incidental civilian-product use by military personnel, not a dedicated military supply relationship or tactical product deployment.

Geographic Routing Features in Occupied Territories

Waze’s “Avoid Dangerous Areas” feature, which geofences Palestinian Authority-controlled zones (Areas A and B under the Oslo Accords), is a feature of the standard civilian consumer product. VICE reported that this setting is available to Israeli users and effectively routes traffic away from Palestinian urban population centres, while no equivalent functionality routes Palestinian users away from Israeli military installations or settler-only roads¹². The 7amleh report on Google Maps and Waze routing in the Palestinian territories further documents the routing asymmetry and the underrepresentation of Palestinian localities¹³. These are product design characteristics of the civilian application; they do not constitute a separately marketed tactical variant.

End-User Certification & Export Licensing

No publicly known export licence applications, end-user certificates, or government export control reviews related to Waze products supplied to Israeli defence or security end-users have been identified. No public evidence identified. Waze is a free consumer application; it is not subject to conventional munitions or controlled dual-use goods export licensing in any jurisdiction identified in available sources.

Heavy Machinery, Construction & Infrastructure

This section is structurally inapplicable to Waze Mobile Ltd. in its entirety. Waze is a software-only navigation application company; it does not manufacture, sell, distribute, or maintain any physical machinery, vehicles, construction equipment, or engineering systems.

• Equipment in Occupied Territories: Not applicable. Waze produces no physical equipment. No public evidence identified.
• Direct vs. Indirect Supply of Physical Equipment: Not applicable. No public evidence identified.
• Construction & Engineering Contracts: No verified contracts for the construction, maintenance, or expansion of military checkpoints, detention facilities, military bases, the separation barrier, or settlement infrastructure have been identified. No public evidence identified.

Supply Chain Integration with Defence Primes

Component Supply to Israeli Defence Manufacturers

No verified supply relationship in which Waze Mobile Ltd. provides components, sub-systems, raw materials, or specialist manufacturing services to Israeli defence prime contractors — including Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, or IMI Systems — has been identified. No public evidence identified. Source classes reviewed include Elbit Systems annual reports, IAI public supplier information, Rafael corporate disclosures, and Israeli defence industry trade press available through training data.

Joint Development & Co-Production

No verified joint development programmes, co-production agreements, technology transfer arrangements, or licensed manufacturing agreements between Waze Mobile Ltd. and any Israeli defence prime have been identified. No public evidence identified.

Waycare / Rekor Systems Data Partnership

The most materially relevant supply-chain-adjacent finding concerns the documented data partnership between Waze and Waycare, an Israeli-founded traffic analytics startup. GovTech confirmed a formal data-sharing arrangement under which Waycare aggregated Waze crowdsourced traffic data alongside municipal sensor feeds for use by transport agencies and municipalities¹⁴. The relationship was also covered in the context of road safety deployments in US cities, including Las Vegas¹⁵.

In 2021, Rekor Systems — a US-based company specialising in automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) technology — acquired Waycare for approximately $61 million¹⁶. Rekor’s business includes contracts with US Departments of Transportation and law enforcement agencies¹⁷. Police Magazine confirmed Rekor’s plug-and-play vehicle recognition capability in law enforcement contexts¹⁷.

It is important to bound what this chain of evidence establishes: the Waze–Waycare partnership is documented as a municipal traffic management relationship¹⁴; the Waycare–Rekor acquisition is a corporate transaction documented in traffic technology trade press¹⁶. No verified documentary evidence from procurement records, government disclosures, or investigative journalism specifically establishes that Waze-sourced data flowing through the Waycare/Rekor pipeline was operationally used by Israeli security forces — the Israel Police, Shin Bet, or IDF — for surveillance or predictive policing of Palestinian populations. Rekor Systems is a US-listed public company (NASDAQ: REKR); its SEC filings are publicly available, and no Israeli security force contracts for Waycare-derived Waze data have been identified in those disclosures within available training data.

Google Parent-Level Infrastructure Context

Untold Magazine¹⁸ and +972 Magazine⁸ have documented the broader pattern of Silicon Valley technology companies — particularly Google — providing infrastructure, AI capabilities, and cloud services to Israeli military and government customers. The Times of Israel has contextualised Waze within Google’s broader Israeli acquisition and investment strategy²¹⁹. These analyses situate Waze as one node within a larger Israeli technology ecosystem with documented defence sector connections, though no source specifically establishes Waze as a named vendor in a defence prime supply chain.

Logistical Sustainment & Base Services

Service Contracts to Military Installations

No verified contracts to provide catering, transport, fuel, waste management, facilities maintenance, telecommunications, or other logistical support services to IDF bases, military training facilities, detention centres, or security installations have been identified. No public evidence identified.

Connected Citizens Program / Waze for Cities

Waze operates a formal data-exchange programme with municipal and government agencies, originally known as the Connected Citizens Program (CCP) and subsequently rebranded as “Waze for Cities”²⁰²¹. Under this programme, Waze shares anonymised, aggregated real-time incident and traffic data with participating government entities; in return, those entities provide road closure and construction data to improve Waze routing accuracy²⁰²¹.

Waze community documentation confirms the programme’s operation and its availability to a range of government partners²⁰²¹. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem municipal transport authorities are consistent with the programme’s documented scope. However, no verified public evidence specifically identifies the Israel Police — as a national security institution with paramilitary functions — as a named CCP/Waze for Cities partner in Waze’s official programme documentation or in verified news reporting. The precise list of Israeli government bodies participating in the programme has not been publicly disclosed in full. This distinction between municipal traffic management agencies and national security forces is material to any logistical sustainment assessment.

Geographic Routing Behaviour in Occupied Territories

The 7amleh report¹³ documents Waze’s routing logic in Areas A, B, and C of the West Bank, characterising the application’s behaviour as reinforcing geographic separation. CBC News reported in 2019 on the functional limitations of Waze and Google Maps for Palestinian users navigating the West Bank — specifically the failure of mainstream navigation applications to account for checkpoint realities faced by Palestinian travellers — documenting the development of the alternative Palestinian application Doroob in response²². VICE’s earlier reporting established the asymmetry in Waze’s “Avoid Dangerous Areas” feature for Israeli versus Palestinian users¹². Green Olive Tours documented the geographic underrepresentation of Palestinian localities on Google Maps and Waze²³.

A 2010 Guardian report on Route 443 through the West Bank provides historical context on the road access regime that Waze’s routing logic intersects with²⁴. An academic paper on identity documents and Palestinian mobility in the West Bank provides further structural context on the movement control environment²⁵.

These findings describe the civilian product’s geographic behaviour in occupied territories. They do not constitute evidence of formal logistical service contracts with military installations.

Waze Carpool Discontinuation

Waze’s Carpool feature — a ride-sharing product — was discontinued in 2022²⁶. This product had no identified defence or security logistical function; its discontinuation has no bearing on the logistical sustainment assessment.

Munitions, Weapons Systems & Strategic Platforms

All sub-categories under this section are structurally inapplicable to Waze Mobile Ltd. Waze is a navigation software application; it is not a manufacturer of, nor a component supplier to, any lethal system, munitions platform, or strategic weapons system.

• Lethal Systems Manufacturing: No public evidence identified.
• Munitions & Precursor Materials Supply: No public evidence identified.
• Strategic & Existential Defence Systems: No public evidence identified.
• Sub-System & Critical Component Supply: No public evidence identified.

Source classes reviewed include Israeli Ministry of Defence procurement public notices, Elbit Systems/IAI/Rafael annual reports and supplier disclosure lists, US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) notifications, and Jane’s Defence industry database coverage available through training data.

+972 Magazine’s April 2024 investigation into the “Lavender” AI targeting system used by the IDF in Gaza²⁷ documents the use of AI-driven targeting methodologies. This investigation names specific AI tools and data systems; it does not name Waze or any Waze dataset as an input into the Lavender system or any other IDF weapons targeting platform. Any link between Waze and the Lavender system would be an inference from shared infrastructure rather than a documented finding in these sources, and is accordingly not recorded as a verified finding here.

Export Licensing, Regulatory & Legal History

Export Licence Decisions

No publicly known government decisions to grant, deny, suspend, or revoke export licences for Waze products to Israeli military or security end-users, in any jurisdiction, have been identified. No public evidence identified. Waze is distributed as a free consumer application through global app stores; it has not been identified as subject to conventional munitions or dual-use goods export licensing under any applicable regime (US EAR, EU Dual-Use Regulation, Israeli export control law) in available sources.

Arms Embargo & Sanctions Compliance

No investigations, regulatory citations, or enforcement actions related to Waze’s compliance with arms embargoes, export control regimes, or sanctions affecting defence trade with Israel have been identified. No public evidence identified.

Legal Challenges & Judicial Review

No court proceedings, judicial reviews, or legal challenges brought against Waze Mobile Ltd. specifically regarding a defence supply relationship with Israel have been identified. No public evidence identified.

In the broader Google corporate context, approximately 50 Google employees who participated in protests against Project Nimbus at Google offices in April 2024 were terminated²⁸. These terminations became the subject of US labour dispute proceedings and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaints. The No Tech For Apartheid campaign documented this event²⁹²⁸. These proceedings relate to Google’s Nimbus contract broadly and do not name Waze Mobile Ltd. as a specific party in any legal action.

Civil Society Scrutiny & Documented Investigations

NGO & Academic Reports

7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media has published the most substantive NGO investigation specifically focused on Waze’s geographic conduct in the Palestinian territories¹³. The report documents: (a) routing that excludes Palestinian urban centres for Israeli users via the “Avoid Dangerous Areas” feature; (b) the underrepresentation or mislabelling of Palestinian villages and localities in the West Bank; and (c) full navigability of Israeli settlements, including outposts. This report constitutes the primary civil society evidentiary record directly addressed to Waze as a named subject.

Who Profits Research Center, which maintains a database of technology and other companies operating in the occupied territories, has catalogued Google’s activities in Israel/Palestine³⁰. The precise depth of Waze-specific analysis within the Who Profits database — as distinct from coverage of Google broadly — is not fully determinable from available training data. A direct query to the Who Profits database would be required to establish the exact scope of their Waze-specific documentation³⁰.

+972 Magazine has published extensively on Project Nimbus⁸ and on IDF AI targeting systems including the Lavender system²⁷, providing detailed context for Google’s infrastructure role in Israeli military operations. Neither article specifically names Waze as a direct or proximate enabler of the described military capabilities.

Untold Magazine published a 2024 analysis documenting the broader pattern by which Silicon Valley firms — with Google prominently featured — are argued to be fuelling Israeli military capabilities through technology contracts¹⁸. Waze is referenced within the context of Google’s Israeli acquisition history, alongside its direct cloud and AI contracting¹⁸².

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre logged the October 2023 traffic data disabling, documenting it as a civil society concern regarding corporate compliance with military requests in a conflict context⁶.

CBC News provided on-the-ground reporting from 2019 documenting the operational failures of Waze and Google Maps for Palestinian users navigating the West Bank, and the development of the alternative Doroob application as a direct consequence²².

No Amnesty International report, Human Rights Watch report, or AFSC corporate screening database entry specifically focused on Waze’s military or defence supply chain relationship has been identified in available training data.

Boycott & Divestment Campaigns

The BDS Movement maintains an active list of technology sector campaign targets³¹, with its primary tech-sector focus on companies including HP and Google (for Project Nimbus). No BDS campaign specifically and solely targeting Waze Mobile Ltd. — as distinct from Google as the parent company — has been identified in verified campaign documentation³¹.

The No Tech For Apartheid campaign²⁹²⁸ has directed sustained activist and worker organising specifically at Google’s Project Nimbus contract. Campaign materials reference Google’s cloud and AI services to the Israeli government. Waze is not separately named as a discrete campaign target in verified No Tech For Apartheid documentation, though the campaign’s scope implicates Google as a corporate whole²⁹.

The Times of Israel has covered the broader political and civil society debate over Google’s Israeli technology acquisitions — from Waze in 2013 through to Wiz in 2024 — in a series of articles contextualising Waze’s founding, its founders’ military backgrounds, and the Israeli military intelligence ecosystem from which multiple Google-acquired companies have emerged²¹⁹. A 2017 Waze-generated false traffic alert that caused significant disruption on an Israeli highway illustrates the application’s demonstrated capacity to influence road traffic patterns at scale³², a capability relevant to any civil society analysis of the application’s potential misuse.

Corporate Response to Civil Society Pressure

Following the October 2023 live traffic data disabling, neither Waze nor Google issued a detailed policy statement distinguishing obligations under Israeli law from voluntary compliance with IDF requests³⁴. Reporting characterised the action as compliance with a government/military request, but no Waze-specific legal basis (whether voluntary cooperation, a formal order under Israeli Emergency Regulations, or a Cyber Directorate directive) was publicly established³⁴⁵. No Waze-specific end-use monitoring commitments, ethical review announcements, or contract termination declarations in response to civil society pressure have been identified. No public evidence identified.

End Notes