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

https://nltimes.nl/2026/06/05/dutch-govt-will-allow-european-company-operate-digid-platform

by TechTechTech • 2 months ago

290 105 2 months ago

tosti• 2 months ago

IDK what it's like now, but DigiD used to be 2 racks in a separate cage. Even if you can access the floor, you're not getting physically near the servers.

deafpolygon• 2 months ago

What's wrong with the government taking over admin of DigiD? I just don't understand why the government won't consider funding it. It's a public infrastructure service at this point.

AndrewDucker• 2 months ago

For some reason the government isn't willing to pay software developer salaries. It would rather pay a company to pay them instead.

tokai2• 2 months ago

In most cases its illegal to set up something inside the public org. It needs to be put out as a public offer. It's part of New public management pushed by neoliberal interests.

arjie• 2 months ago

That's a logical thing for governments to do. Governments are under pressure on different axes than the companies they contract to do things. Governments switching contracts won't ever make the news, but it's much harder for them to fire people in order to take advantage of increasing efficiencies. Likewise, they cannot short-term employ people easily without this structure.

pjmlp• 2 months ago

In some countries that is a dream job.

The public servant benefits in vacations, work hours, health support, plus an above average salary as highly educated technician.

ur-whale2• 2 months ago

What's wrong with the government taking over admin of DigiD?

Because they're a government and they are therefore going to fuck it up.

lyu072822• 2 months ago

Unfortunately you will never realize how this ideology is fucking up every facet of society and which interests that are never your own put a momentous effort into drilling that propaganda into your head.

GuinansEyebrows• 2 months ago

the netherlands is far from perfect but unless you have a specific grievance with their government, you really have no idea how much better it can be. it's night and day when compared with places like the united states. things can be better even though it feels impossible sometimes.

SlinkyOnStairs• 2 months ago

One important note: It's not the admin of the system that's in question here, that is government ran.

The company in question only provides cloud services, and has no access to any data.

I just don't understand why the government won't consider funding it. It's a public infrastructure service at this point.

It has been 9 years since the last centrist ("purple") government in the Netherlands. 24 years since the last left-wing led government. Nothing more to it.

It's just decades of Neoliberal "outsource government tasks to the free market" policy. There really isn't any other reason; The Dutch government has multiple divisions which are quite good at IT. It could choose to do so at any moment, it just doesn't.

Voters just didn't care. The system worked fairly reliably. So they just kept voting for a very charismatic politician, regardless of the long term consequences.

flexagoon2• 2 months ago

Why is DigiD even a product that needs constant maintenance? From my experience using it it's just a pretty simple authentication/data sharing system. Every oauth provider has something similar. Why is it a whole separate product that is owned by some company?

ivan_gammel2• 2 months ago

Any network service with 24x7 availability and millions of users requires constant maintenance. Hardware has some lifetime and needs to be maintained and replaced. OS needs patching. Dependencies need security updates and, time to time, migrations to next major LTS update. Sometimes new requirements come from regulatory, that need development of new features. The skill set needs to be maintained. Support requests need to be served. Law enforcement may ask for some data.

Add to this hard digital sovereignty requirements: continuity of service must be guaranteed for decades. All this requires quite a special setup in which commercial entities are rather tolerated than welcomed, but they may still make more sense than a government agency so constrained by budget process that they cannot hire any decent engineer.

flexagoon2• 2 months ago

Of course, I understand why some maintenance is required. I just don't get why there is apparently a big maintenance burden over something that is usually a single small feature of a service

juliusceasar• 2 months ago

Finally taking the digital threath from USA, Israel and China serious.

28304283409234• 2 months ago

Yes.. their days of not taking the threat seriously certainly have come to a middle.

fidotron• 2 months ago

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

Freak_NL3• 2 months ago

“This year's Eurovision winner: Tommy, Käärijä, and Joost, the Euroboys!”

“Huh. Israel hardly got any votes this year.”

ChrisArchitect• 2 months ago

Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48278406

markus_zhang• 2 months ago

What if this European company decides to contract out its job to other continents?

masfuerte• 2 months ago

Then they'll be in breach of contract. Lots of government contracts have a "no outsourcing" clause.

boricj5• 2 months ago

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.

navane• 2 months ago

I'm mostly bewildered that the Dutch government was ok with that, and it took way too much effort from the opposition to get them to pivot on this.

irdc• 2 months ago

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.

spockz3• 2 months ago

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.

yxhuvud• 2 months ago

Governments are not the only players needing working digital id, and sometimes banks are faster to build it.

spockz3• 2 months ago

Banks have nothing to do with DigiD. There is eidas which allows you to attest your identity using a bank.

Aaargh203182• 2 months ago

DigiD is a government project. It's owned and operated by Logius, which is a government-owned entity.

Logius outsourced the hosting and infrastructure to Solvinity.

loupol• 2 months ago

That's a bit better but it shifts the question:

Why did they not mandate national (or at least EU-based) hosting and infra ?

It feels a bit insane in retrospect for such a critical digital service ?

carlosjobim• 2 months ago

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.

expedition32• 2 months ago

The Netherlands is a small but very tasty fish in a pond infested with sharks.

None of the sharks ultimately ever managed to agree who gets to eat it- because whoever did would upset the balance between the sharks.

But China and America are mega sharks who don't care about balance and want to eat everything or die trying.

boricj5• 2 months ago

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.

amaccuish• 2 months ago

Some European countries right now have their currency printing and their passport printing outsourced to foreign nations.

Whilst I still agree with your premise that this is not wise, I should point out that, for example UK passports, whilst produced in Poland, are personalised in the UK. Not that that helps the UK case since the personalisation is done by Thales...

outside1234• 2 months ago

Probably because it is wildly expensive to have a government directly run any tech project.

boondongle• 2 months ago

Most National governments embraced globalism and free market solutioning. It worked both ways.

American Federal Systems also have European and Indian operators but it gets more restricted depending on what part of the system you're dealing with. Even then, the operators get it wrong.

Many "American" firms are being served by Irish, Bulgarian, and Dutch operators for example. When you get to Fedpod, the restrictions are usually tiered, not all or nothing. It's why US firms got caught with Chinese handling data.

The question isn't should Europe and even America clean it up - it's how much is legitimate national soverignty and how much is going to be straight mercantilism in the Cloud/SaaS sector.

PeterStuer• 2 months ago

"Most National governments embraced globalism and free market"

One could say globalists and free marketeers 'embraced' governments.

wolvoleo• 2 months ago

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

France is a lot more socialist luckily.

justinclift• 2 months ago

Meanwhile Palantir is getting in tight with the UK government, to the point of managing the UK's firearms, explosives, and poisons licensing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403043

jasonvorhe5• 2 months ago

Good luck with digital id. Not gonna play along. No matter what.

hhh2• 2 months ago

Why? It’s been around in the netherlands for a while and it’s extremely convenient, basically just functions as SSO for government apps.

jasonvorhe5• 2 months ago

I don't care much about government services. The less I deal with them, the better. I can file my stupid taxes using some certificate that was sent to me by mail, that's enough for me.

What else would the government have to offer? If I move I'll show up at some local entity, get my passport updated and I'll never think about it again until next time I move.

jfyi• 2 months ago

I knew a fellow with the same idea about government id of any form. No driver's license, no social security card, no state id.

To say the least, he made some pretty serious compromises in life. He was a tattoo artist with no shop and effectively homeless when I knew him, if you were curious.

Anyway, sometimes the world moves on without you.

jasonvorhe5• 2 months ago

I have a passport. Once digital becomes mandatory I'm ready for the scenario you described.

cromka2• 2 months ago

Yes, we need even more antisocial individualism!

jasonvorhe5• 2 months ago

You must have been great company between 2020-2022.

MUST. COMPLY.

boricj5• 2 months ago

When you are interacting with the government for official business, what purpose is there to hide one's identity? You can't exactly not fill in your name in your tax return.

For the non-government/private business however, it is indeed a matter of privacy. France rolled out a while ago the requirement to establish the user's age when accessing porn sites. I refuse to do that.

themafia• 2 months ago

what purpose is there to hide one's identity?

I'm not hiding it. It's on a plastic card that I paid the government to print for me. I'm happy to let them see that anytime they ask in relation to official business or legal concerns.

I do not want this ID to be digital, attached to any devices, or available for inspection outside of my control at any point in time.

You can't exactly not fill in your name in your tax return.

I just sign them with ink. The same I do with any other contract or agreement. Surprisingly those contracts are just as valid as the tax bill I receive every year and yet no digital anything was ever involved with them. They're fully analog and yet fully enforceable by law.

France rolled out a while ago the requirement to establish the user's age when accessing porn sites.

If you give them an inch they will take a mile, or perhaps, if you give them a centimeter they will take a kilometer. I couldn't care less if the government is somehow inconvenienced by analog privacy. I do not perceive any personal benefits from having my ID be "digital."

jasonvorhe5• 2 months ago

Who said anything about hiding anything? If they summon me to show up somewhere or if there's a legitimate reason for interaction with the government I'll show up at some local place, show my ID and I'm done with it.

I'm just not gonna hand them even more tools of control.

gbraad3• 2 months ago

Finally.

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

microtonal2• 2 months ago

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.

gbraad3• 2 months ago

Thanks for this link. Will forward this

gbraad3• 1 month ago

BTW, Gina Plat of the OSPO of tbe MinBZK was made aware of this and replied.

shevy-java• 2 months ago

Plot twist: the data will still be stored outside of the EU - the magic of cloud computing. :D

consumer4513• 2 months ago

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.

dgan• 2 months ago

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

consumer4513• 2 months ago

SV VCs have been Stanford's biz dev team. Every country should use that as a template.

Barrin92• 2 months ago

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.

consumer4513• 2 months ago

When your previous major ally now threatens to destroy your country, and system of government, new compromises need to be made.

We are all in for a wild ride in the coming years. Many adjustments will need to be made. Those who adjust fastest will come out on top.

pyuser5833• 2 months ago

Almost every country has amazing universities with software tracks.

Simply not true. It’s questionable what “best program” means for software engineering. It’s a hard craft to teach in classrooms and apprenticeship/mentoring model is reputable. Even if every country had such a system today (far from it) it wouldn’t produce devs with 10 years experience until 10 years from now.

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

Simply not true. Go with the best tool for the job. Favoritism for domestic industries is fatal in highly innovative industries. Even if your own product is better (American Gopher was far superior to European HTTP, American UNIX was superior to Finnish Linux, American Perl was superior to Dutch Python), adoption matters.

Looking backward it seems really bizarre to favor locals, doesn’t it?

The alternative is building the capacity to evaluate and mitigate risk.

ergocoder• 2 months ago

Why not just dutch company?

There are European countries that are obviously pro-russia...

pyuser5833• 2 months ago

Yeah seriously if ADF gets elected do you cancel German contracts?

seymores• 2 months ago

It's wild how untrustworthy USA is now.

dopidopHN2• 2 months ago

Why do you think its wild ? I find that easy to understand and grounded in facts.

pyuser5833• 2 months ago

Ok fine. In the long run nativising has limits.

A good model is 5g WiFi: trust the foreign dumb parts and provide your own smart parts.

But that requires excellent state capacity. Specifically intelligence sharing with domestic regulators- which many countries struggle with.

At the the end of the day, the processors won’t be designed locally, and trusted computing is quite rare.

hulitu• 1 month ago

Like ... Crypto AG. /s

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

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