OMT chairman Jaap van Dissel has regularly used his private e-mail for communication about corona policy. RIVM confirms this on Tuesday after reporting from de Volkskrant† Van Dissel used a Gmail address to contact ministers, civil servants, OMT members and RIVM employees. Earlier it was announced that former Health Minister Hugo de Jonge (CDA) used his private email for work-related communication.
Also read: Minister De Jonge also used his private email. He offered ‘sincere apologies’ twenty times and was allowed to stay on†
According to Van Dissel, the use of his private address made his work “easier”, he told an RIVM spokesperson. de Volkskrant† This is because of the “large amounts” of e-mails he received during the corona crisis. It could take “a long time” to log in to the RIVM systems and it was not always possible to send attachments. The systems were therefore “not always usable”, according to Van Dissel.
Using private email for official communication poses security risks and can lead to a lack of transparency. Mails sent through private accounts are often not archived in government systems. They are also not always released if someone invokes the Government Information (Public Access) Act (Wob).
‘Too confidential’
The RIVM states that Van Dissel never sent confidential documents via his private address. De Volkskrant notes that “some attachments” in Van Dissel’s emails with Wob requests have been labeled as “too confidential” to release.
At the beginning of April, former health minister De Jonge had to answer to the House of Representatives for sending work-related communication from his iCloud account. He also defended himself by stating that the ministry’s systems were too complex. According to the RIVM, the criticism of De Jonge was a reason for Van Dissel to only use his work email in the future.