Four questions
To the surprise of the tech world, the contract with DigiD manager Solvinity has been extended today. The IT company appears to be falling into American hands, after which President Donald Trump could pull the plug. What now? Four questions about the DigiD takeover answered.
Wouter Peer
Parliamentary reporter multimedia
What exactly is going on?
A large part of the Dutch welfare state runs on the digital identification platform DigiD. Your health insurance, benefits or tax return: you cannot access them without DigiD. The platform is managed by the government service Logius, but the engine of the system, the digital infrastructure, is on the computers of the Dutch tech company Solvinity. And that company now appears to be taken over by the American Kyndryl.
Why might the takeover be a problem?
The US Cloud Act allows the US government to request data from US-based companies, regardless of where that data is stored. Solvinity not only manages DigiD, but also the much more privacy-sensitive systems of MijnOverheid and JustID, the information service of the Ministry of Justice and Security. That kind of data should not end up in the hands of foreign powers, experts say. If Solvinity ends up in American hands, that will be the case.
In addition, it is feared that American President Donald Trump could soon pull the plug on all of DigiD if the Netherlands does something he does not like. Trump has already shown that this ‘red button’ is not a fictional scenario. When the US government imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court after it executed an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, it denied access to Microsoft accounts of ICC employees following pressure from the White House.
Why is May 6 an important day?
The contract with Solvinity expires today. A group of experts, including former politician Pieter Omtzigt, former minister Ferd Grapperhaus and professor of digitalization and democratic rule of law Reijer Passchier, want this contract not to be extended. A new tender must be issued. According to the experts, this can be done ‘without much extra cost’. DigiD should then be managed by a new company in August. “The timeline is short, now that the decision to switch has been consistently postponed, but under pressure everything becomes fluid,” they write.
But State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Home Affairs) stands firm. In April he wrote to the House that ‘the continuity’ of DigiD will be jeopardized if the contract is terminated now. “The cabinet has made its decision,” says a spokesperson for Van der Burg. “That’s it for now.”
What else can be done about it?
In short: not much. The House of Representatives is almost unanimously critical of the takeover, but cannot do much about it. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which mainly looks at the consequences for market forces, has already given the green light.
Only the Investment Assessment Bureau (BTI), which assesses ‘national security risks’, has yet to have its say. But experts believe that they will not stop the takeover either, because the law is not designed for such a situation.
The BTI is expected to issue a judgment soon. If the authority gives the green light, Kyndryl can take over Solvinity and no one can do anything about it.
The contract with Solvinity will continue at least until 2028. A motion by GroenLinks-PvdA to terminate the contract as of 2028 achieved a parliamentary majority. But if the cabinet cannot find an alternative before 2028, it can also ignore the motion. With the prospect of the contract ending in 2028, politicians hope that Kyndryl itself will abandon the purchase. But that doesn’t seem to be the case yet.
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