An Israeli IT company that operates multiple projects supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It operates in illegal settlements and manages parts of Israel's discriminatory population registry system.
Hilan Ltd is one of Israel's largest information technology (IT) and software companies. It serves "the entire defense and security organizations and entities in Israel," according to its website. Its subsidiary Ness acquired EntServ Israel from DXC Technology in 2022. EntServ has a long history of supporting multiple projects of Israel's apartheid system, and switched hands multiple times between several large American IT companies. In 2008, it was acquired by the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) from Electronic Data Systems (EDS). It was later owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and DXC Technology before being acquired by Israeli company Ness.
EntServ manages certain aspects of Israel's population registry, which includes ethnic identity and religion markers and facilitates discrimination between Jews and non-Jews in Israeli and in the occupied Palestinian territories. EntServ has been the primary contractor for the Aviv system, which hosted the population registry, since 2008. This legacy system is being phased out in favor of a newer system managed by IBM. However, in 2021, the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority awarded EntServ a four-year contract to continue supporting its systems. EntServ also holds a five-year contract, which started in 2020, as part of Israel's biometric ID card system. All residents, including Palestinian non-citizens, are required to carry these cards.
In addition, Ness has multiple projects supporting the Israeli Civil Administration, the government agency that oversees civilian aspects of Israel's occupation in the West Bank, according to Who Profits. In the past, the company was awarded contracts by the Israeli Security Agency (Shabak) and the Israel Police; it also had a joint venture with Elbit Systems (NesBit) that served the Israeli Air Force.
In 2017, EntServ (then a DXC subsidiary) was contracted to support the creation of a new system for tracking and supporting the demolition of Palestinian construction in the occupied West Bank. As part of this project, EntServ employees were stationed at the Civil Administration headquarters at a military base in the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit El.
Ness also operates a research and development center in Beitar Illit, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank that was originally established by EDS in 2006. In 2022, the company opened an employment and training center for the Palestinian population of occupied East Jerusalem.