If it's such a vital piece of Dutch infrastructure, why is it in private hands at all?
Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
31–40 of 246 posts
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#32Finally! The entire country has been clamouring for this for weeks, and the government has been completely silent about it. A couple of weeks ago, the entire parliament (with only a single party dissenting) voted for a motion to end the contract with Solvinity, but the government extended it anyway, leaving blocking the takeover as the only option, and there wasn't a lot of confidence that the government would do tha…
>> Finally! You are behind the curve. You read here first. Lets revisit this comment in 2 years... This will be overturned by both Dutch and European courts after the company appeals, and specially after Mark Rutte Daddy calls. The only purpose of this action is for the Dutch government to save face, and its for internal consumption. They already have the internal legal advice stating this, hidden away in some closet…
> Mark Rutte Daddy calls
Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#33If it's such a vital piece of Dutch infrastructure, why is it in private hands at all?
DigiD itself is government-owned, but its infrastructure is managed by Solvinity (a private company). Not really different from the US gov running half its stack on AWS.
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#34One word: good.
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Finally! You are behind the curve. You read here first. Lets revisit this comment in 2 years... This will be overturned by both Dutch and European courts after the company appeals, and specially after Mark Rutte Daddy calls. The only purpose of this action is for the Dutch government to save face, and its for internal consumption. They already have the internal legal advice stating this, hidden away in some closet…
> Mark Rutte Daddy calls Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?
[1]- NATO Secretary General responsibilities:
"...Above and beyond the role of chair, the Secretary General has the authority to propose items for discussion and use their good offices in case of disputes between member states....
...In order to facilitate this process, the Secretary General maintains direct contact with Heads of State and Government, and Foreign and Defence Ministers in NATO and partner countries...."
[1] - https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-structure...
And Mark Rutte has been shaping the domestic fiscal debate inside the Netherlands [2]: "...Mark Rutte said the Netherlands must significantly boost defence spending and pointed to Dutch spending on pensions, healthcare and social security, saying only a small fraction of those allocations would strengthen defence..."
[2] - https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/nato-leader-rutte-netherlands-...
And on conspiracy theories - Do you trust the Financieele Dagblad?
https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/20/asml-offered-spy-us-breaking-e...
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#36Good on the Dutch government for actually doing something.
All governments are "doing something". It just isn't at all effective and mostly because they're unwilling to invest even marginal amounts. Like in this case. The technology here utterly depends on Google Play Services on Android or App Attest on Apple (or "secure enclave"), and that is in fact essentially the only functionality. This could have been solved instead switching to a standard (switching to OATH, RFC 4226…
Uhm, no, DigiD works without Play Services:
https://www.logius.nl/actueel/qr-code-scanner-digid-app-werk...
(Also works fine on my GrapheneOS phone with only basic integrity, also worked on microG when I tested.)
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#37Finally! The entire country has been clamouring for this for weeks, and the government has been completely silent about it. A couple of weeks ago, the entire parliament (with only a single party dissenting) voted for a motion to end the contract with Solvinity, but the government extended it anyway, leaving blocking the takeover as the only option, and there wasn't a lot of confidence that the government would do tha…
It is a bit more complex tham that. Logius is the company that actually owns and manages the DigiD stack, it's just that they hired Solvinity for their expertise. AFAIK Solvinity can't access the data. I can't find it right now, but on Tweakers there was a long comment by someone on the inside that explained Logius basically had almost no know-how of how the current stack works, and there's lots of bespoke stuff. Bas…
Logius is actually not a company but a part of the dutch (national) goverment.
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#38[flagged]
By that we mean, send a whitehouse crony over to throw a temper tantrum on Dutch soil.
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Finally! You are behind the curve. You read here first. Lets revisit this comment in 2 years... This will be overturned by both Dutch and European courts after the company appeals, and specially after Mark Rutte Daddy calls. The only purpose of this action is for the Dutch government to save face, and its for internal consumption. They already have the internal legal advice stating this, hidden away in some closet…
> Mark Rutte Daddy calls Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?
> unfounded conspiracy theories
Their sentiment is that Trump intervenes by whining to Mark Rutte, who seems to be the only European Trump is actually willing to listen to, at the expense of course of giving up all his dignity in calling Trump, literally, Daddy [1].
And I would not put it past Trump to do that... I mean, that's what he already did regarding Tiktok.
With Trump nothing is impossible any more, especially if he or someone in his circle stands to make or lose money. And that's the greatest danger in the US turning into a full blown banana republic.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/25/nato-chief-calls-tr...
Re: Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier
#40If it's such a vital piece of Dutch infrastructure, why is it in private hands at all?
DigiD itself is government-owned, but its infrastructure is managed by Solvinity (a private company). Not really different from the US gov running half its stack on AWS.
Okay, maybe let's not take the US as a point of comparison.