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Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

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Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#61

Post by microtonal »

spockz wrote: post #23
irdc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutch person, I'm not. Dutch administrators are traditionally wary of doing anything themselves that they could conceivably outsource to a commercial party. That also results in endless swarms of locus^H^H^H^H^Hconsultants feeding on our taxes. I hate it, but what can you do, this is sadly what people here keep voting for.

I’m unaware of this kind of topic ever being one of the points in election time. This as opposed to topics like animal welfare. Sovereignty is only now becoming more visible as a votable topic. Sadly, I don’t know of a way to influence how our government practices IT. Except maybe to work for Logius. And even then there will be the topic of funding.

I’m unaware of this kind of topic ever being one of the points in election time.

IT sovereignty may not have been a topic during elections, but it should be clear to anyone now that the VVD (political party that has been in most governments in the past decades) is a revolving door. When given a choice, they will always prefer letting the market do it/deregulate. This is not limited to IT. Banks, insurance companies, gas companies (Shell), etc. is where they work before they go into politics and/or work after they leave politics.

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#62

Post by microtonal »

gbraad wrote: post #50

Finally. But now they want NL Wallet to use Google and Apple accounts for login, so this is happening again.

There is hope:

Thank you for raising this issue. We are aware that our current implementation does not yet work on GrapheneOS. This is a temporary situation we plan to resolve before this app goes public.

https://github.com/MinBZK/nl-wallet/issues/34#issuecomment-4...

Until then, I'd recommend every Dutch person (or probably every EU person, since this could also influence other wallets) to upvote/heart the initial request in that issue to show that there is serious demand for this.

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#63

Post by lucumo »

boricj wrote: post #45
carlosjobim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire customs system of all of China used to be run by European foreigners. Not because of Western imperialism, but on invitation from the Chinese rulers, as a measure to combat corruption. Some European countries right now have their currency printing and their passport printing outsourced to foreign nations. These things aren't too unusual.

For France it certainly is, probably because of our stubborn focus on strategic autonomy. For example, offshoring passport printing to me sounds like a great opportunity for identity theft and document forgery by people outside of your jurisdiction. I do kinda get the China customs system example though, only because if corruption is bad enough that it's a greater concern than opsec, then you're kinda hosed anyways.

> For France it certainly is, probably because of our stubborn focus on strategic autonomy.

You're seeing people wake up to the threat now, with the opposition against Kyndryl and the Nexperia thing.

Somewhat more controversially, I'm also worried about the French government owning large parts of the Dutch defense industry through Thales and Airbus. (And, to a lesser extent, German and Spanish governments.)

Very little of the Dutch defense industry is still Dutch-owned. Only Damen comes to mind.

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#64

Post by wolvoleo »

boricj wrote: post #13

As a French person, I'm confused as to why DigiD is not a government-run project like FranceConnect is. I'm even more bewildered that an American company thought that they could take over the national identity management system of an European country, as if this was business as usual.

The neoliberal party VVD love involving private businesses in government operations, they considered that a win-win.

France is a lot more socialist luckily.

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#65

Post by pyrale »

somewhatgoated wrote: post #39
pyrale wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why did they not mandate national (or at least EU-based) hosting and infra ? They did, and they moved to block the acquisition of the local company handling it. What's unclear in the article?

They didn’t > Currently, DigiD is partially managed by Solvinity, a company owned by a British investor Britain is neither local nor in the EU

The company is incorporated in the netherlands, and the workers are there. The corporate structure means the shareholder can't do whatever they want.

I don't see why they should bother with who invests in it, when they have the power to do what they just did and block the acquisition.

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#66

Post by tapland »

Freak_NL wrote: post #40
fidotron wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When EU ID is needed for Eurovision voting we can all act surprised by the change in rankings.

“This year's Eurovision winner: Tommy, Käärijä, and Joost, the Euroboys!” “Huh. Israel hardly got any votes this year.”

I'm getting spam and harassment from accounts promoting Israels eurovision contestant, on IRC, in 2026. It's every year and probably on all newer socials too.

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#67

Post by consumer451 »

Here is my naive take on sovereignty, and how everything should work in the new "USA decided to kill its own dominance, and attack its allies" world. The world is now balkanized, let's live in that reality.

1. Almost every country has amazing universities with software tracks. A big issue is that universities often don't prepare their students for the real work, aka making and supporting products.

2. Governments should greatly favor products created by the students of their own universities.

The goal of every country should be to foster a sovereign software flywheel. Anything else seems pretty darn silly.

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#69

Post by dgan »

consumer451 wrote: post #67

Here is my naive take on sovereignty, and how everything should work in the new "USA decided to kill its own dominance, and attack its allies" world. The world is now balkanized, let's live in that reality. 1. Almost every country has amazing universities with software tracks. A big issue is that universities often don't prepare their students for the real work, aka making and supporting products. 2. Governments shou…

I ve had exactly same idea for many years now, but apparently that's not as obvisous to others

Developing new software? Universities! Maintaining/migrating old software? Universities! IT counseling and advise? You won't believe it ... Unive okey i stop here you got the point

Re: Dutch gov't will only allow European company to operate DigiD platform

#70

Post by Barrin92 »

consumer451 wrote: post #67

Here is my naive take on sovereignty, and how everything should work in the new "USA decided to kill its own dominance, and attack its allies" world. The world is now balkanized, let's live in that reality. 1. Almost every country has amazing universities with software tracks. A big issue is that universities often don't prepare their students for the real work, aka making and supporting products. 2. Governments shou…

>The goal of every country should be to foster a sovereign software flywheel

The very simple economic problem with this is that autarky does not increase aggregate output. Saying "I will do this myself", always requires the qualification "at the expense of what else that I'm not doing?"

The adaption to a reality of a balkanized world for small countries is, like Singapore does successfully, triangulate between large countries, specialize what you're good at, be pragmatic and flexible and strategically neutral which makes big powers compete for you without drawing hostility, rather than trying to become 'sovereign', which makes you poor and a target.

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