It appears that the Dutch government is in the process of setting up its own cloud for sensitive data. This cloud will replace the current public cloud services used by the government. State Secretary for Digitalization, Szabó, is currently actively working on this. This initiative responds to a request from the House of Representatives to strengthen the Dutch government’s digital autonomy and reduce its reliance on third parties. But what will this private cloud look like?
Motion from the House of Representatives regarding the government’s own cloud
The government’s sudden interest in establishing its own cloud is partly driven by three motions from the House of Representatives. In these motions, the House of Representatives makes it clear that it wants the Dutch government to gain greater independence and autonomy in the area of digitization. Currently, the Dutch government relies on cloud services provided by American tech giants. This naturally creates a strong dependence on the United States in the areas of data security and storage. The House of Representatives wants to see this changed as soon as possible.
A complete turnaround is not possible
Szabó agrees with the House of Representatives’ position that it is not advisable to be entirely dependent on the United States and major tech companies such as Microsoft. However, he notes that it is not possible to immediately halt the migration of government IT systems to U.S. cloud services entirely. Doing so could jeopardize the continuity of services provided to the Dutch public. In addition, Szabó indicates that it is not within his role as State Secretary to approve or disapprove of individual migration projects.
Taking trade agreements into account
Although Szabó agrees with the House of Representatives that the Netherlands should not become overly dependent on certain parties, he advises against giving European companies priority as a matter of principle. Doing so would violate the Government Procurement Agreement and global trade agreements. He is, however, willing to promote open source wherever possible. The Netherlands is currently collaborating with government agencies from other countries, including France and Germany, on a solution for an open-source workplace. That project is set to launch this quarter!