‘Still a sovereign Rijkscloud’ this cabinet term

A wish of the House of Representatives is embraced by the State Secretary for Digitization, Zolt Szabó (PVV). He wants to build a sovereign government cloud, as an alternative to the services of existing large (American) cloud providers within this cabinet term « , the government of which is highly dependent.

At the beginning of this year noted the Court of Audit That the Dutch government has become dangerously dependent on large American cloud providers. And that those IT services have been purchased without the mandatory risk analyes being done. The subject lives in the Lower House. A large part of the parties there demands that dependence on in particular American ‘Big Tech’ is reduced.

A step here would be the development of a sovereign Dutch government cloud. So that Dutch ministries, municipalities and, for example, water boards have an alternative place to park their data.

The State Secretary initially discouraged motions that initially insisted, but is now committed to having a government cloud built, According to a letter that went to the Lower House on Monday. « With the sovereign government cloud we can further increase our digital autonomy, » he says in an explanation.

Sensitive data

In the first instance, the existing capacity of data centers from the government is linked to each other. For example, that infrastructure can be made more than available to other governments who, for example, want to store sensitive data from citizens. The ‘Rijkscloud’ then consists mainly of a kind of basic infrastructure. Not from the many software applications that make companies and governments like to use the cloud services of Microsoft, Amazon and Google. What the National Cloud will cost and who has to pay it is not yet clear.

Barbara Kathmann of GroenLinks-PvdA, initiator of the motion, does not think the State Secretary is long enough and is afraid that it will remain with ambitions, as long as there is no budget for it. « Scrolly bite. »

The interpretation differs from what a sovereign cloud contains. It is certain that it should fall under Dutch or European law. At the US parties, the US government and intelligence services can demand access to the data, even if they are in data centers that are in Europe.

ZSabó does not meet a number of other requirements of the House of Representatives. MPs insist on centralizing the purchasing of software. Now not only all departments, but also all 342 Dutch municipalities, water boards, provinces and independent administrative bodies do all themselves. The State Secretary wants stricter tests and supervision, but does not try to centralize the power over purchasing. He also appears to be in favor of favoring Dutch or European software companies in government tenders.

There is a lively debate in Europe about the ways in which that could and what impulse that would give to European alternatives to the major American companies. According to the State Secretary, this is not legally possible.

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