Amazon and Google, which won the Israeli government's Nimbus cloud computing deal, agreed to demands to set up a special reporting mechanism about data handed to foreign governments, as part of the contract, according to leaked documents seen by the Guardian, as part of a joint investigation with left-leaning Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call.

Through a so-called coded system called the "winking mechanism," every request to hand over data to a foreign government is accompanied by a report made in a way that seems to come straight out of a spy thriller. Amazon and Google reportedly send Israel's Finance Ministry secret codes through a money transfer that reveals the identity of the country that required them to disclose the information, even if the country has issued an order preventing them from revealing that they provided such information.