A US multinational high tech company, previously part of the Hewlett-Packard Company. Provides equipment to the discriminatory Israeli population registry and prison system.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is a U.S.-based multinational information technology (IT) service provider. The company was formed in November 2015, when it split from Hewlett-Packard Company. In 2016, the company reported $50.1 billion in revenue. In April 2017, the company split again, and merged its Enterprise Services segment with Computer Science Corporation (CSC) to form a new company, DXC Technology. Following these splits, the remnants of the historic Hewlett-Packard Company form three separate corporations:
- HP Inc., which is the legal successor of the historic Hewlett-Packard Company, manufactures and sells consumer hardware, mainly personal computers, laptops, printers, scanners, and other peripheral devices.
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is mainly a manufacturer and provider of servers, networking, data storage equipment, and software services to institutional clients. HPE was split again in September 2017, selling its software business to the UK-based company MicroFocus.
- DXC Technology focuses on outsourced IT services and the design and implementation of custom-made IT platforms for institutional clients such as government agencies and big corporations.
Hewlett-Packard Company, the original company that is now defunct, has worked closely with the Israeli military and several Israeli authorities on a wide range of occupation-related projects at least since the 1990s. Many of these were taken over by Hewlett Packard Enterprise after the 2015 split. We believe it is the responsibility of the company to respond to public concerns and clarify the scope of its current involvement in each and every one of these.
The corporate restructuring was not followed by public disclosure about the separation of specific business relationships and subsidiary companies in Israel, and the status of their contracts. We reached out to HP Enterprise with a request for clarification, but we received no response. However, HP Enterprise publicly stated that it cooperates closely with HP Inc. and that the two companies share supply chains, buy together and bid on contracts together. Upon the launch of DXC Technology, HP Enterprise publicly stated that it will “maintain a strong relationship with DXC, with agreements in place to support current customers.”
Services and Technologies to the Israeli Military, Police and Prison System
Hewlett-Packard Company has been providing multiple services and technologies to the Israeli military, which is the primary Israeli authority that administers the military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In 2006, Hewlett-Packard Company was selected as the first private contractor to administer some of the Israeli military’s IT infrastructure. The project started with a pilot program for the Israeli Navy, which is in charge of enforcing the illegal naval blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2007. In 2009, the contract was expanded to similarly “virtualize” the entire Israeli military. If this contract is still active, it was transferred to HP Enterprise in 2015, and it is likely that it is now carried out by DXC Technology. However, we have no current information on these activities.
In 2007, the Israel Prison Service contracted Hewlett-Packard Company to develop, implement, and maintain a new information system, called Kidma, to include all its prisoner records system, prison management system, the prisons’ human resources system, and their intelligence system. The Israeli Prison Service is in charge of all incarcerated persons in Israel/Palestine. As of April 2017, this includes some 6,400, among whom about 500 are in administrative detention and 300 are children. Most Palestinian prisoners are transferred from the occupied Palestinian territories to prisons located within Israel, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 76). Furthermore, the Israel Prison Service separates Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisoners, and subject them to torture and other discriminatory treatment. The Israeli Prison Service terminated this contract after Hewlett-Packard Company failed to deliver the system. Still, it retained the services of Hewlett-Packard Company to maintain its servers and other IT infrastructure as well as to provide training for its personnel. Following the 2015 split of Hewlett-Packard Company, this contract was transferred to HP Enterprise, which is contracted to provide these services at least until January 2021.
Hewlett-Packard Company has also provided various technology services to the Israel National Police, at least since 2004 and until 2016, including endpoint stations to use the above-mentioned population database and other software, networking, and hardware products. The Israeli Police is in charge of enforcing the law within the occupied West Bank and providing security for the illegal Israeli settlements. Furthermore, the police regional district headquarters was built in the controversial E-1 settlement area as a part of Israel’s plan to connect the Ma’ale Adumim settlement to East Jerusalem, in order to severely impede the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, while displacing Palestinian residents. In addition, the Border Police branch of the Israel National Police is regularly deployed in the occupied Palestinian territories, where it is under the command of the military, and it is also used routinely against Palestinian citizens of Israel. Following the 2015 split of Hewlett-Packard Company, these activities were transferred to HP Enterprise. It is likely, but not confirmed, that they are now carried out by DXC Technology.
Past Involvement in the Israeli Occupation
This section includes information about the company’s past business involvement in the occupation. Some of these activities we know are now carried out by other companies, and for others, we have no indication of continued activity.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise held a contract with the Israeli Ministry of Defense for maintenance of the Basel system, a biometric access control system that uses hand scanners and facial geometry to identify Palestinians and control their passage through Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Israeli system of checkpoints and discriminatory permits violates multiple international human rights and principles of international humanitarian law. The Basel System contract was handled by Hewlett-Packard Company until its 2015 split, when it was transferred to HP Enterprise. In response to a WhoProfits freedom of information inquiry, the Israeli Ministry of Defense stated that the Basel system was scrapped at the end of 2016 and is no longer active. The Israeli military designed a different system to replace it.
HP Enterprise has operated a research and development (R&D) center in Beitar Illit, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. The center, first established in 2006 by Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in a facility of the Beitar Illit municipality, was relocated in 2012 into a new building, shared with Malam Team and Citybook Services. Starting in 2008, in operated under Hewlett-Packard Company. Between 2015 and 2017 it belonged to HP Enterprise, and after the 2017 split it was transferred to DXC Technology.
HP Enterprise's predecessor, Hewlett-Packard Company, was contracted in 2005 by the Israeli government to implement a pilot of its "Smart City" project in Ariel, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. This project included building a disaster-resilient storage system for critical municipal services and installing a municipal network system to deliver wireless Internet access to the city’s employees and residents. If this contract is still active, it was transferred to HP Enterprise in 2015, but we have no current information on its status.
In 2011, Hewlett-Packard Company won a multi-year contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to be the exclusive provider of servers for the Israeli military and other Israeli security forces. Following the 2015 split of Hewlett-Packard Company, this contract was transferred to HP Enterprise. This contract was repeatedly extended until 2017, when Cisco won a bid to replace it. It is likely that HP Enterprise is still contracted for the maintenance of existing servers, but we have no current information confirming this.
Past Involvement in the Israeli Population Registry and ID System
HP Enterprise’s predecessor, Hewlett-Packard Company, had a longstanding contract with the Israeli Ministry of Interior Affairs to operate and maintain the central database of Israel’s Administration of Border Crossings, Population and Immigration (PIBA), which also includes the country’s population registry. The registry records information about residents’ ethnic identity and religion. Israeli and Palestinian residents are required by law to carry at all times an ID card, which indicates their ethnicity and religion. Israeli authorities regularly use this information to discriminate between Jews and non-Jews in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In the 1990s, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior launched the Aviv Project to modernize the computerized database that contains its population registry. The company that was contracted to design the new database was Digital Equipment Corporation, which was later bought by Compaq, which in 2003 merged with Hewlett-Packard Company. In 2008, Israel launched the Arbel project, which was a pilot for adding biometric data of Israeli citizens into the population registry. The company that was contracted to implement this project was Electronic Data Systems (EDS), which in 2008 was bought by Hewlett-Packard Company. Beginning in 2013, Hewlett-Packard Company employees have been stationed at system terminals located in Israeli government buildings in order to provide technical assistance to Israeli government employees. In addition, In 2008, Hewlett-Packard Company also started producing biometric ID cards for Israeli residents, including Israeli citizens, Israeli West Bank settlers, and Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem.
Following the 2015 split of Hewlett-Packard Company, these contracts were transferred to HP Enterprise, and it was transferred to DXC Technology in May 2017.
Involvement in Worldwide Mass Incarceration, Policing, Immigrant Deportations, and Surveillance Systems
HP Enterprise provides IT services to multiple law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and around the world. This includes a project to increase the efficiency of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office under Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio was sued by the ACLU in 2007 and by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2013, and was found guilty of discriminatory policing against Latinos, unconstitutional detention targeting Latino immigrants, and retaliating against his critics. According to HP Enterprise own account of the project, Arpaio was “pleased” with its technology, which his office has been using “for many years” in order to “support its professional law enforcement, detention and administrative services.” HP Enterprise provides similar IT services to police departments in Brazil, the UK, and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
HP Enterprise supplies the U.S. government with equipment for its mass surveillance programs. In 2001, following the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, Hewlett-Packard Company donated “truckloads” of servers to the National Security Agency (NSA) to enable the creation of Stellar Wind, the mass domestic surveillance program of warrantless wiretapping. As of 2016, HP Enterprise still provides equipment to the NSA.
Outside the U.S., Hewlett-Packard Company developed in 2011, along with Cisco, a system of 500,000 networked cameras for the city of Chongqing, China, in a project called “Peaceful Chongqing.” Responding to concerns that the equipment would be used by the Chinese authorities to repress political dissent, an HP executive told the Wall Street Journal: “It's not my job to really understand what they're going to use it for. Our job is to respond to the bid that they've made.” If this contract is still active, it was transferred to HP Enterprise in 2015.
In 2010, Hewlett-Packard Company was contracted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to design and implement a system to speed up deportation processes. The system automated the process by which the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) determines the immigration status and identity of suspects through tracking warrants, jail rosters and “criminal alien tracking.” Under the “Secure Communities Initiative,” this information was shared with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies across the U.S. HP Enterprise handled this contract between 2015 and 2017, and it is now in the hands of DXC Technology.
In 2014, Hewlett-Packard Company was contracted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to design, implement, and provide ongoing support for California’s Strategic Offender Management System. The system stores and tracks information on all current and former people incarcerated by the state, and this data can be used to discriminate against formerly incarcerated persons years after their release. HP Enterprise handled this contract between 2015 and 2017, and it is now in the hands of DXC Technology.
- On July 13, 2019, Unite the Union, the second largest British and Irish trade union, joined the Boycott HP campaign which focuses on HP and HPE's provisioning of equipment and technology for Israel's army and police.
- On March 3, 2019 the Swarthmore Student Government Organization passed a resolution calling on "Swarthmore College and its Board of Managers to implement a screen on investments in companies involved in repeated, well-documented, and severe violations of international human rights law in Israel / Palestine, including... Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co."
- On June 10, 2018, the Students Federation of India (SFI), representing four million students in India, decided to join the BDS movement by pledging to boycott HP products. The General Secretary of SFI pledged that the federation will push the HP boycott campaign across colleges and universities in India and work to convince university administrations to adopt procurement policies that prohibit business with HP companies.
- On May 23, 2018, student government of the California State University- East Bay unanimously endorsed a divestment resolution calling to divest from corporations profiting from the occupation of Palestine. The companies listed include Motorola Solutions, G4S, Hewlett Packard, and Caterpillar.
- On May 23, 2018, the student senate at the University of Oregon passed a resolution to divest from companies including the Strauss Group, the Osem Group, Hewlett-Packard Company, Ahava, General Electric, Eden Springs, Motorola, G4S, Elbit Systems. The resolution also prohibited the purchase of products from Sabra, Tribe, Sodastream, and the companies listed above.
- On April 9, 2018, Dublin City Council voted to pass a motion that boycotts all business contracts with HP Enterprise and DXC Technology.
- On June 12, 2017, Swedish Bank SEB added HP Enterprise in its no-buy-list. The bank declared that it is removing from all its funds forty companies "that violate international standards for the environment, corruption, human rights and labor law." The bank had previously stopped investing in companies involved in nuclear programs and in coal production.
- On April 18, 2018, Barnard College Student Government Association passed a referendum calling for the university to divest from eight companies profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestine. The companies listed include Hyundai, Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Elbit Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Bank Hapoalim.
- On April 9, 2017, Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution urging the university to divest from "corporations that profit off the occupation of Palestine and the continued spread of settlements declared illegal under international law," including Elbit Systems, G4S, Northrop Grumman, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
- On March 15, 2017, the De Anza College Associated Student Body (DASB) passed a resolution to "divest from companies that violate international human rights law" in Palestine, naming specifically Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, G4S, and Motorola Solutions. This was the first community college to pass a divestment resolution related to human rights violations in Palestine. Students for Justice, the group that presented the resolution, told DASB that "by asking De Anza to divest, you are asking them to no longer take a side in this conflict."
- On April 12, 2016, the College Council of the University of Chicago passed a resolution to Divest University funds from apartheid, urging the university “ to withdraw, within the bounds of their fiduciary duty, investments in securities, endowments, mutual funds, and other monetary instruments with holdings in companies profiting from human rights abuses and violations of international law in Palestine, including, Hewlett-Packard."
- March 25, 2016, The Unitarian Universalist Association and its endowment fund have implemented a human rights screen and divested from companies complicit in human rights violations, including HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
- On March 9, 2016, Palestinian activists led by Bassem Al-Tamimi filed a $34.5 billion civil lawsuit in D.C. against individuals and companies that have been "funding violent settlement activities in occupied Palestine." The lawsuit names several defendants, including G4S, RE/MAX, Africa Israel Investments, Motorola, Volvo, Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, Oracle Corp., and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
- On March 6, 2016, the Vassar Student Association voted to support the international BDS movement and to divest from companies profiting from Israeli human rights abuses, including Hewlett-Packard.
- On March 1, 2016, the University College London Union voted to support the BDS campaign, stating that the student union will “not have any commercial or investment relationship with companies that participate in Israeli violations of international law, including G4S, Veolia, HP and military companies that supply Israel such as BAE Systems and Raytheon.”
- The Undergraduate Student Government Assembly at the University of Illinois-Chicago unanimously voted on February 16, 2016, to pass a resolution to divest from corporations profiting off the Israeli occupation and other human rights violations, including Hewlett-Packard.
- On January 19, 2016, a landslide vote by the University of South Florida student senate passed a joint resolution to divest from corporations who profit from "illegal and brutal occupation" in Palestine, including Hewlett-Packard. The resolution was later vetoed by the student government president.
- In November 2015 the student government at San Jose State University voted to divest from "companies that play an active role in the human rights violations committed by the Israeli Government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories" including HP.
- In November 2015, the University of California Santa Cruz student government reinstated a divestment resolution against HP that had originally passed in 2014, but was suspended pending an appeals process. The resolution calls on the university to drop its investments in any company that "profits from the Israeli occupation of Palestine."
- In October 2015 the Human Rights Council of the city of Portland, Oregon demanded that the City Socially Responsible Investments Committee place HP on the city's "Do Not Buy" list due to its complicity in "serious human rights violations in the ongoing illegal and brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land."
- In May 2015 Princeton graduate students passed a referendum calling on the university to divest from companies such as Hewlett-Packard as it is "complicit in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip."
- In May 2015 the Olgethorpe University Student Senate passed a resolution to divest from Hewlett-Packard “based on evidence of their active role in human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
- In April 2015 the Student Senate of Earham College passed a resolution in support of divestment "from companies directly involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine", including Hewlett-Packard.
- Northwestern University students voted to divest from HP in February 2015, citing its involvement in the Israeli ID card system and global mass incarceration.
- In February 2015 the University of California Student Association, the official governing assembly of all University of California students, passed a resolution calling for the university to divest from companies “that violate Palestinian human rights,” specifically mentioning HP.
- Students at UC Los Angeles passed a resolution to divest from HP in November 2014, because it “provide[s] biometric identification systems used at Israeli military checkpoints, which restrict the freedom of movement of Palestinians, facilitate discrimination against Palestinians, and reinforce a stratification of citizenship.”
- In 2014, Britain’s National Union of Students called on its members to boycott HP because it is “complicit in financing and aiding Israel’s military.”
- In 2014, the University of New Mexico’s Graduate and Professional Student Association targeted HP for divestment because it “has restricted the freedom of movement of Palestinians and reinforced a stratification of citizenship by providing biometric identification systems used at Israeli military checkpoints.”
- At UC Santa Cruz, in 2014, the student senate passed a divestment resolution against HP, stating “HP systems are installed in Israeli military checkpoints specifically designed to control and monitor Palestinian civilian movement and in military prisons.”
- In June 2014, the Presbyterian Church's General Assembly voted to divest from HP, citing "ten years of unsuccessful engagement with the corporation on its involvement in home demolitions."
- UC Riverside’s student government passed a resolution in the spring of 2014, stating HP “restrict[s] the freedom of movement of the Palestinian peoples within the West Bank by providing biometric identification systems used in the Israeli military checkpoints
- Loyola University in Chicago passed a 2014 divestment resolution that stated HP “provides discriminatory identification systems used by the Israeli military checkpoints and profits from mass incarceration.”
- A 2014 referendum passed by students at DePaul University decreed that HP “profit[s] from Israel's violation of the human rights of Palestinians and minorities within Israel.”
- Nordea Bank engaged HP in 2014.
- In April 2013, University of California Berkeley students passed a resolution against HP, stating it “provide[s] equipment, materials, and technology to the Israeli military, including bulldozers and biometric identification systems.”
- The Oberlin College student senate voted in 2013 to divest from HP due to its “injustices perpetrated on the Palestinian people by Israel.”
- Students at Canada’s York University Graduate Student Association voted in 2012 to divest from HP, citing its role in “Israeli human rights violations, war crimes, and oppression.”
- The Friends Fiduciary Corporation (Quakers) divested in 2012, citing HP’s role “provides IT consulting services to the Israeli Navy.”
- In November 2012, University of California Irvine Associated Students voted unanimously to divest from HP, citing that it is “restricting the freedom of movement...by providing biometric identification systems used in the Israeli military checkpoints.”
- The United Methodist Church began engaging with HP in 2008, citing concern over “human rights policies and practices in Israel,” and four regional conferences voted to divest from it in 2013.