8 ms·

Finally! The entire country has been clamouring for this for weeks, and the government has been completely silent about it. A couple of weeks ago, the entire p

by mcv 5mo ago

Finally! The entire country has been clamouring for this for weeks, and the government has been completely silent about it. A couple of weeks ago, the entire parliament (with only a single party dissenting) voted for a motion to end the contract with Solvinity, but the government extended it anyway, leaving blocking the takeover as the only option, and there wasn't a lot of confidence that the government would do that. The whole reason for this is that Solvinity host DigiD, the Dutch e-ID system that handles authentication to all government and many other sensitive systems (healthcare). With the US law that the US government should be able to get access to any data held by a US company, regardless of where it's hosted, this system clearly should be kept out of American hands. Of course there's still plenty of sensitive data in the hands of Microsoft, Amazon and other US companies. No idea when they're going to do something about that.

hvb2 5mo ago
> A couple of weeks ago, the entire parliament (with only a single party dissenting) voted for a motion to end the contract with Solvinity, but the government extended it anyway, leaving blocking the takeover as the only option, Given what we know now, this seems perfectly logical. It's just that we don't know what else is going on behind the scenes. I'm sure there was some negotiations on how to keep the data separate or something, with the threat of blocking it altogether as a final solution. But agreed, this is a good outcome
- monegator 5mo ago
  > I'm sure there was some negotiations which i'm sure the current administration would honour There should be grave consequences alone for the fact that the goverment acted against the parliament
  - hvb2 5mo ago
    > which i'm sure the current administration would honour It would've been the same administration as the one doing the negotiations, so I would assume yes. > There should be grave consequences alone for the fact that the goverment acted against the parliament In general I think there's a pretty good understanding between the legislative branch and the executive branch. The Netherlands has always had coalitions. Also, every single government will talk to the other parties. I'm not sure what country you're referring to but the Netherlands has a properly functioning democracy. The only problem it has is splintering into too many small factions making coalitions super hard
    - mcv 5mo ago
      There are certainly countries that have it worse, but Netherland has some weird political games being played sometimes.
      - hvb2 5mo ago
        The voters don't always deal the cards favorably for the coalition system. Compared to a 2 or 3 party system, I think I still prefer the coalitions though as it forces them to negotiate
        mcv 5mo ago
        Yeah, but this time the coalition negotiations were rather dirty. The largest party and therefore most likely prime minister was the most progressive of the centrist parties (D66) and would normally want to work with the moderate left-wing labour party (GLPvdA, now PRO), but the most conservative of the centrist parties (VVD) banned them from negotiations, and preferred one of the right-wing/racist parties (Ja21) instead. If the other two centrist parties really wanted, there could have been a left-center majority of 6 parties, but instead, they let the VVD call the shots, and now it's effectively a VVD minority government. (VVD had previously also voted to label antifascism "terrorism", which I'm sure must have caused Benjamin Telders, the antifascist they named their scientific bureau after, to spin in his grave.)
        hvb2 5mo ago
        It does look like Jetten was too much of an optimist. Thinking he will just get some things done if only he gets a coalition together...
    - BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
      > executive branch I didn't think the Netherlands had one of those.
      - hvb2 5mo ago
  - Muromec 5mo ago
    There was that chip company that was almost nationalized by the Dutch government few months ago when their Chinese owners started making funny noises.
jorvi 5mo ago
It is a bit more complex tham that. Logius is the company that actually owns and manages the DigiD stack, it's just that they hired Solvinity for their expertise. AFAIK Solvinity can't access the data. I can't find it right now, but on Tweakers there was a long comment by someone on the inside that explained Logius basically had almost no know-how of how the current stack works, and there's lots of bespoke stuff. Basically classic vendor lock-in. The government (rather, Logius) now really wants to transition away from Solvinity, but that will likely be a 5+ year process. I also feel like this is another thing that the "fast ring" of the EU should do together. Take Estonia's stack as a base, and then countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands adopt it and co- develop it. Make it extensible for the bespoke things the countries need, and every few years check which bespoke extensions can actually be generalized and modularized. Would lead to a much better product. A man can dream :)
- NoahZuniga 5mo ago
  Logius is actually not a company but a part of the dutch (national) goverment.
  - shiandow 5mo ago
    In that case we can indeed safely assume they have no technical knowledge.
  - Muromec 5mo ago
    It's a state owned enterprise as far as I remember. So technically they don't wear civil service uniforms in the office, but still get the usual government office hours.
    - RobotToaster 5mo ago
      The Dutch civil service wears a uniform?
      - erikvanoosten 5mo ago
tcp_handshaker 5mo ago
>> Finally! You are behind the curve. You read here first. Lets revisit this comment in 2 years... This will be overturned by both Dutch and European courts after the company appeals, and specially after Mark Rutte Daddy calls. The only purpose of this action is for the Dutch government to save face, and its for internal consumption. They already have the internal legal advice stating this, hidden away in some closet. But then they will say: You see, we wanted to do it but a court blocked us. >>Of course there's still plenty of sensitive data in the hands of Microsoft, Amazon and other US companies. The WHOLE Dutch diplomatic and broader civil service, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, runs extensively on Microsoft infrastructure for its daily operations, cloud services, and email. And they leak.... "Microsoft Accused Of Sharing Dutch Officials’ Data with U.S. Government" - https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/microsoft-accused-sharing-dutch-officials-154644836.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/microsoft-accus... This will also be the core legal argument by the appealing company. They will argue that the decision was politicized, insufficiently reasoned, or disproportionate because binding technical/legal safeguards would have solved the risks... And they will use as example, the diplomatic service extensive use of Microsoft :-) So is nothing more than another Polder hypocritical take, by the Dutch government.
- j_maffe 5mo ago
  > Mark Rutte Daddy calls Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?
  - tcp_handshaker 5mo ago
    [1]- NATO Secretary General responsibilities: "...Above and beyond the role of chair, the Secretary General has the authority to propose items for discussion and use their good offices in case of disputes between member states.... ...In order to facilitate this process, the Secretary General maintains direct contact with Heads of State and Government, and Foreign and Defence Ministers in NATO and partner countries...." [1] - https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-structure/nato-secretary-general https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-structure... And Mark Rutte has been shaping the domestic fiscal debate inside the Netherlands [2]: "...Mark Rutte said the Netherlands must significantly boost defence spending and pointed to Dutch spending on pensions, healthcare and social security, saying only a small fraction of those allocations would strengthen defence..." [2] - https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/nato-leader-rutte-netherlands-must-significantly-boost-defense-spending https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/nato-leader-rutte-netherlands-... And on conspiracy theories - Do you trust the Financieele Dagblad? https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/20/asml-offered-spy-us-breaking-export-ban-china-2023-book-claims https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/20/asml-offered-spy-us-breaking-e...
cyanydeez 5mo ago
lets be frank, these are changes caused by the downgrading of the American administration to a subscription services behind a paywall that requires DLC, root based encryption bypasses and a Clippy popup that instead of trying to be helpful is indistinguishable from a mafia racket.
edwinjm 5mo ago
*for months
WhyNotHugo 5mo ago
For some of functionality, DigiD itself requires an iOS or Android app (for which you need to enter a contractual agreement with either Apple or Google and they decide whether you are allowed to install and use the app). I understand that this particular path doesn't allow them to access further sensitive data, but it does give these corporations the power to block any individual for accessing the DigiD app. You don't need the app for most functionality, but for a few healthcare related tasks, it's the only option, with no fallback.
- davedx 5mo ago
  Which tasks? I use DigiD with SMS and I've never needed to install an app, I have healthcare etc etc.
  - Muromec 5mo ago
    I believe there are three levels -- password only, otp and otp after you tap the id card in the app (I think it's just once). My healthcare provider changed their online thing this year and that new thing required highest assurance level. I think they changed it back because you can only tap with the Dutch id card (not the residence permit or other country's ids).
  - WhyNotHugo 5mo ago
    Once specific task was linking an Apotheke to my healthcare provider. SMS was not allowed for this flow. I've seen other scenarios, but I don't recall them.
DoneWithAllThat 5mo ago
> With the US law that the US government should be able to get access to any data held by a US company Er, what law is this, exactly?
- davedx 5mo ago
  CLOUD Act.
- frevib 5mo ago
  CLOUD Act and FISA §702
- fsckboy 5mo ago
  it is not easy with a quick search to ascertain the subtleties of the CLOUD Act. the example case on wikipedia entails a US citizen storing data with Microsoft, a US company, data that Microsoft offshored from the US. So in that case, the US Courts and politicians seem on pretty firm ground to consider that data to be "obtainable" by court order; it wouldn't make sense for American vendors to to create a privacy "double Dutch sandwich" as is done with corporate income tax loopholes. Letting the law go that far would not be a threat to "Europe". Now if Europeans were committing crimes in the US without being in the US themselves (let's say organized crime trafficking to the US or operating phone scams) that raises more interesting questions about jurisdictions, but that discussion is only productive with good knowledge of what US-European cooperation is already in place or considered "within the pale" due to shared mutual concerns According to wikpedia, "the CLOUD Act asserts that U.S. data and communication companies must provide stored data for a customer or subscriber on any server they own and operate when requested by warrant, but provides mechanisms for the companies or the courts to reject or challenge these if they believe the request violates the privacy rights of the foreign country the data is stored in." It could "scare" Europeans to read that, but an important keyword is "requested by a warrant": to be scared by it, you'd need to know that US Courts are issuing warrants for Europeans who are not committing crimes in the US, which I doubt. Europeans committing crimes I already touched on. wikipedia continues, It also provides an alternative and expedited route to MLATs through "executive agreements"; the executive branch is given the ability to enter into bi-lateral agreements with foreign countries to provide requested data related to its citizens in a streamlined manner, as long as the Attorney General, with concurrence of the Secretary of State, agree that the foreign country has sufficient protections in place to restrict access to data related to United States citizens.[8][9] The first such agreement was with the United Kingdom.[10] There is a FAQ appended to the white paper published by the U.S. Department of Justice. This aspect of the CLOUD act should not specifically scare Europeans, they should rather be scared of their own governments cooperating in such schemes. For Europeans to want the US not to have the CLOUD act to protect them from their own governments is rational, but not something that can be discussed, it would melt European brains to say anything positive about the US. wikipedia goes into more interesting areas for US/Euro conflict (for example, who would be covered by the GDPR for the information that the CLOUD act covers) which is interesting but I'm less equipped to discuss that than the preceding. here is the link you can chase down if you want https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reacti... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reacti...

by mcv 5mo ago

hvb2 5mo ago

> A couple of weeks ago, the entire parliament (with only a single party dissenting) voted for a motion to end the contract with Solvinity, but the government extended it anyway, leaving blocking the takeover as the only option, Given what we know now, this seems perfectly logical. It's just that we don't know what else is going on behind the scenes. I'm sure there was some negotiations on how to keep the data separate or something, with the threat of blocking it altogether as a final solution. But agreed, this is a good outcome

monegator 5mo ago
> I'm sure there was some negotiations which i'm sure the current administration would honour There should be grave consequences alone for the fact that the goverment acted against the parliament
- hvb2 5mo ago
  > which i'm sure the current administration would honour It would've been the same administration as the one doing the negotiations, so I would assume yes. > There should be grave consequences alone for the fact that the goverment acted against the parliament In general I think there's a pretty good understanding between the legislative branch and the executive branch. The Netherlands has always had coalitions. Also, every single government will talk to the other parties. I'm not sure what country you're referring to but the Netherlands has a properly functioning democracy. The only problem it has is splintering into too many small factions making coalitions super hard
  - mcv 5mo ago
    There are certainly countries that have it worse, but Netherland has some weird political games being played sometimes.
    - hvb2 5mo ago
      The voters don't always deal the cards favorably for the coalition system. Compared to a 2 or 3 party system, I think I still prefer the coalitions though as it forces them to negotiate
      - mcv 5mo ago
        Yeah, but this time the coalition negotiations were rather dirty. The largest party and therefore most likely prime minister was the most progressive of the centrist parties (D66) and would normally want to work with the moderate left-wing labour party (GLPvdA, now PRO), but the most conservative of the centrist parties (VVD) banned them from negotiations, and preferred one of the right-wing/racist parties (Ja21) instead. If the other two centrist parties really wanted, there could have been a left-center majority of 6 parties, but instead, they let the VVD call the shots, and now it's effectively a VVD minority government. (VVD had previously also voted to label antifascism "terrorism", which I'm sure must have caused Benjamin Telders, the antifascist they named their scientific bureau after, to spin in his grave.)
        hvb2 5mo ago
        It does look like Jetten was too much of an optimist. Thinking he will just get some things done if only he gets a coalition together...
  - BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
    > executive branch I didn't think the Netherlands had one of those.
    - hvb2 5mo ago
- Muromec 5mo ago
  There was that chip company that was almost nationalized by the Dutch government few months ago when their Chinese owners started making funny noises.

jorvi 5mo ago

It is a bit more complex tham that. Logius is the company that actually owns and manages the DigiD stack, it's just that they hired Solvinity for their expertise. AFAIK Solvinity can't access the data. I can't find it right now, but on Tweakers there was a long comment by someone on the inside that explained Logius basically had almost no know-how of how the current stack works, and there's lots of bespoke stuff. Basically classic vendor lock-in. The government (rather, Logius) now really wants to transition away from Solvinity, but that will likely be a 5+ year process. I also feel like this is another thing that the "fast ring" of the EU should do together. Take Estonia's stack as a base, and then countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands adopt it and co- develop it. Make it extensible for the bespoke things the countries need, and every few years check which bespoke extensions can actually be generalized and modularized. Would lead to a much better product. A man can dream :)

NoahZuniga 5mo ago
Logius is actually not a company but a part of the dutch (national) goverment.
- shiandow 5mo ago
  In that case we can indeed safely assume they have no technical knowledge.
- Muromec 5mo ago
  It's a state owned enterprise as far as I remember. So technically they don't wear civil service uniforms in the office, but still get the usual government office hours.
  - RobotToaster 5mo ago
    The Dutch civil service wears a uniform?
    - erikvanoosten 5mo ago

tcp_handshaker 5mo ago

>> Finally! You are behind the curve. You read here first. Lets revisit this comment in 2 years... This will be overturned by both Dutch and European courts after the company appeals, and specially after Mark Rutte Daddy calls. The only purpose of this action is for the Dutch government to save face, and its for internal consumption. They already have the internal legal advice stating this, hidden away in some closet. But then they will say: You see, we wanted to do it but a court blocked us. >>Of course there's still plenty of sensitive data in the hands of Microsoft, Amazon and other US companies. The WHOLE Dutch diplomatic and broader civil service, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, runs extensively on Microsoft infrastructure for its daily operations, cloud services, and email. And they leak.... "Microsoft Accused Of Sharing Dutch Officials’ Data with U.S. Government" - https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/microsoft-accused-sharing-dutch-officials-154644836.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/microsoft-accus... This will also be the core legal argument by the appealing company. They will argue that the decision was politicized, insufficiently reasoned, or disproportionate because binding technical/legal safeguards would have solved the risks... And they will use as example, the diplomatic service extensive use of Microsoft :-) So is nothing more than another Polder hypocritical take, by the Dutch government.

j_maffe 5mo ago
> Mark Rutte Daddy calls Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?
- tcp_handshaker 5mo ago
  [1]- NATO Secretary General responsibilities: "...Above and beyond the role of chair, the Secretary General has the authority to propose items for discussion and use their good offices in case of disputes between member states.... ...In order to facilitate this process, the Secretary General maintains direct contact with Heads of State and Government, and Foreign and Defence Ministers in NATO and partner countries...." [1] - https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-structure/nato-secretary-general https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-structure... And Mark Rutte has been shaping the domestic fiscal debate inside the Netherlands [2]: "...Mark Rutte said the Netherlands must significantly boost defence spending and pointed to Dutch spending on pensions, healthcare and social security, saying only a small fraction of those allocations would strengthen defence..." [2] - https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/nato-leader-rutte-netherlands-must-significantly-boost-defense-spending https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/nato-leader-rutte-netherlands-... And on conspiracy theories - Do you trust the Financieele Dagblad? https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/20/asml-offered-spy-us-breaking-export-ban-china-2023-book-claims https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/20/asml-offered-spy-us-breaking-e...

cyanydeez 5mo ago

lets be frank, these are changes caused by the downgrading of the American administration to a subscription services behind a paywall that requires DLC, root based encryption bypasses and a Clippy popup that instead of trying to be helpful is indistinguishable from a mafia racket.

edwinjm 5mo ago

*for months

WhyNotHugo 5mo ago

For some of functionality, DigiD itself requires an iOS or Android app (for which you need to enter a contractual agreement with either Apple or Google and they decide whether you are allowed to install and use the app). I understand that this particular path doesn't allow them to access further sensitive data, but it does give these corporations the power to block any individual for accessing the DigiD app. You don't need the app for most functionality, but for a few healthcare related tasks, it's the only option, with no fallback.

davedx 5mo ago
Which tasks? I use DigiD with SMS and I've never needed to install an app, I have healthcare etc etc.
- Muromec 5mo ago
  I believe there are three levels -- password only, otp and otp after you tap the id card in the app (I think it's just once). My healthcare provider changed their online thing this year and that new thing required highest assurance level. I think they changed it back because you can only tap with the Dutch id card (not the residence permit or other country's ids).
- WhyNotHugo 5mo ago
  Once specific task was linking an Apotheke to my healthcare provider. SMS was not allowed for this flow. I've seen other scenarios, but I don't recall them.

DoneWithAllThat 5mo ago

> With the US law that the US government should be able to get access to any data held by a US company Er, what law is this, exactly?

davedx 5mo ago
CLOUD Act.
frevib 5mo ago
CLOUD Act and FISA §702
fsckboy 5mo ago
it is not easy with a quick search to ascertain the subtleties of the CLOUD Act. the example case on wikipedia entails a US citizen storing data with Microsoft, a US company, data that Microsoft offshored from the US. So in that case, the US Courts and politicians seem on pretty firm ground to consider that data to be "obtainable" by court order; it wouldn't make sense for American vendors to to create a privacy "double Dutch sandwich" as is done with corporate income tax loopholes. Letting the law go that far would not be a threat to "Europe". Now if Europeans were committing crimes in the US without being in the US themselves (let's say organized crime trafficking to the US or operating phone scams) that raises more interesting questions about jurisdictions, but that discussion is only productive with good knowledge of what US-European cooperation is already in place or considered "within the pale" due to shared mutual concerns According to wikpedia, "the CLOUD Act asserts that U.S. data and communication companies must provide stored data for a customer or subscriber on any server they own and operate when requested by warrant, but provides mechanisms for the companies or the courts to reject or challenge these if they believe the request violates the privacy rights of the foreign country the data is stored in." It could "scare" Europeans to read that, but an important keyword is "requested by a warrant": to be scared by it, you'd need to know that US Courts are issuing warrants for Europeans who are not committing crimes in the US, which I doubt. Europeans committing crimes I already touched on. wikipedia continues, It also provides an alternative and expedited route to MLATs through "executive agreements"; the executive branch is given the ability to enter into bi-lateral agreements with foreign countries to provide requested data related to its citizens in a streamlined manner, as long as the Attorney General, with concurrence of the Secretary of State, agree that the foreign country has sufficient protections in place to restrict access to data related to United States citizens.[8][9] The first such agreement was with the United Kingdom.[10] There is a FAQ appended to the white paper published by the U.S. Department of Justice. This aspect of the CLOUD act should not specifically scare Europeans, they should rather be scared of their own governments cooperating in such schemes. For Europeans to want the US not to have the CLOUD act to protect them from their own governments is rational, but not something that can be discussed, it would melt European brains to say anything positive about the US. wikipedia goes into more interesting areas for US/Euro conflict (for example, who would be covered by the GDPR for the information that the CLOUD act covers) which is interesting but I'm less equipped to discuss that than the preceding. here is the link you can chase down if you want https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reacti... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act#International_reacti...