6 ms·

As a French person, I'm confused as to why DigiD is not a government-run project like FranceConnect is. I'm even more bewildered that an American company though

by boricj 3mo ago

As a French person, I'm confused as to why DigiD is not a government-run project like FranceConnect is. I'm even more bewildered that an American company thought that they could take over the national identity management system of an European country, as if this was business as usual.

navane 3mo ago
I'm mostly bewildered that the Dutch government was ok with that, and it took way too much effort from the opposition to get them to pivot on this.
irdc 3mo ago
As a Dutch person, I'm not. Dutch administrators are traditionally wary of doing anything themselves that they could conceivably outsource to a commercial party. That also results in endless swarms of locus^H^H^H^H^Hconsultants feeding on our taxes. I hate it, but what can you do, this is sadly what people here keep voting for.
- spockz 3mo ago
  I’m unaware of this kind of topic ever being one of the points in election time. This as opposed to topics like animal welfare. Sovereignty is only now becoming more visible as a votable topic. Sadly, I don’t know of a way to influence how our government practices IT. Except maybe to work for Logius. And even then there will be the topic of funding.
  - microtonal 3mo ago
    I’m unaware of this kind of topic ever being one of the points in election time. IT sovereignty may not have been a topic during elections, but it should be clear to anyone now that the VVD (political party that has been in most governments in the past decades) is a revolving door. When given a choice, they will always prefer letting the market do it/deregulate. This is not limited to IT. Banks, insurance companies, gas companies (Shell), etc. is where they work before they go into politics and/or work after they leave politics.
    - spockz 3mo ago
      Oh sure. This applies to almost all politicians, not just those VVD. They are more sought after because they actually have been in government long. (And indeed, maybe it is even a vicious circle.) However, election topics never were about this kind of meta behaviour and more of the topics. Many people voted for PvdA, GroenLinks, D66, and other parties. Even for the more right wing ones than VVD. The thing is that topics these days are so broad that they do not revolve around left/right or liberal/conservative anymore. On topic, privatisation could perfectly have been paired with an European ideal from the beginning. In fact, before all these shenanigans with the one currently called president started, it was still believed we as “the West” were one hegemony. In that light, things were privatised along the ideals. It is only lately that the ideals changed to include more country sovereignty.
yxhuvud 3mo ago
Governments are not the only players needing working digital id, and sometimes banks are faster to build it.
- spockz 3mo ago
  Banks have nothing to do with DigiD. There is eidas which allows you to attest your identity using a bank.
Aaargh20318 3mo ago
DigiD is a government project. It's owned and operated by Logius, which is a government-owned entity. Logius outsourced the hosting and infrastructure to Solvinity.
- loupol 3mo ago
  That's a bit better but it shifts the question: Why did they not mandate national (or at least EU-based) hosting and infra ? It feels a bit insane in retrospect for such a critical digital service ?
  - pyrale 3mo ago
    > Why did they not mandate national (or at least EU-based) hosting and infra ? They did, and they moved to block the acquisition of the local company handling it. What's unclear in the article?
    - somewhatgoated 3mo ago
      They didn’t > Currently, DigiD is partially managed by Solvinity, a company owned by a British investor Britain is neither local nor in the EU
      - pyrale 3mo ago
        The company is incorporated in the netherlands, and the workers are there. The corporate structure means the shareholder can't do whatever they want. I don't see why they should bother with who invests in it, when they have the power to do what they just did and block the acquisition.
    - foresterre 3mo ago
      The "local" company is already UK owned though, so at most "European", not national or EU. What I find strange is that the Dutch government does have its own datacenters, e.g. ODC-Noord (1), but they're still looking to outsource the hosting even after the current contract ends in 2027. (1) https://www.odc-noord.nl/ https://www.odc-noord.nl/
carlosjobim 3mo ago
The entire customs system of all of China used to be run by European foreigners. Not because of Western imperialism, but on invitation from the Chinese rulers, as a measure to combat corruption. Some European countries right now have their currency printing and their passport printing outsourced to foreign nations. These things aren't too unusual.
- expedition32 3mo ago
  The Netherlands is a small but very tasty fish in a pond infested with sharks. None of the sharks ultimately ever managed to agree who gets to eat it- because whoever did would upset the balance between the sharks. But China and America are mega sharks who don't care about balance and want to eat everything or die trying.
- boricj 3mo ago
  For France it certainly is, probably because of our stubborn focus on strategic autonomy. For example, offshoring passport printing to me sounds like a great opportunity for identity theft and document forgery by people outside of your jurisdiction. I do kinda get the China customs system example though, only because if corruption is bad enough that it's a greater concern than opsec, then you're kinda hosed anyways.
  - lucumo 3mo ago
    > For France it certainly is, probably because of our stubborn focus on strategic autonomy. You're seeing people wake up to the threat now, with the opposition against Kyndryl and the Nexperia thing. Somewhat more controversially, I'm also worried about the French government owning large parts of the Dutch defense industry through Thales and Airbus. (And, to a lesser extent, German and Spanish governments.) Very little of the Dutch defense industry is still Dutch-owned. Only Damen comes to mind.
    - boricj 3mo ago
      The days of nationalized French defense companies and state arsenals have been over for quite a while. Assuming I didn't make any mistakes: GIAT was privatized, then renamed to Nexter, then merged with German KMW to form European KNDS and now it's about to do an IPO. All of the French aerospace industry (including missiles) bar Dassault and Thales is inside Airbus. Arquus was bought by Belgian John Cockerill. I could probably cite more if I dug deeper, but while we still have French defense companies like Dassault, Naval Group and Thales, a fair amount of our defense industry is no longer exclusively French owned. And if the French government or owner starts getting uppity, you could always take a page from the Swedes and how they Kockums the shit out of ThyssenKrupp.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
outside1234 3mo ago
Probably because it is wildly expensive to have a government directly run any tech project.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
boondongle 3mo ago
Most National governments embraced globalism and free market solutioning. It worked both ways. American Federal Systems also have European and Indian operators but it gets more restricted depending on what part of the system you're dealing with. Even then, the operators get it wrong. Many "American" firms are being served by Irish, Bulgarian, and Dutch operators for example. When you get to Fedpod, the restrictions are usually tiered, not all or nothing. It's why US firms got caught with Chinese handling data. The question isn't should Europe and even America clean it up - it's how much is legitimate national soverignty and how much is going to be straight mercantilism in the Cloud/SaaS sector.
- PeterStuer 3mo ago
  "Most National governments embraced globalism and free market" One could say globalists and free marketeers 'embraced' governments.
wolvoleo 3mo ago
The neoliberal party VVD love involving private businesses in government operations, they considered that a win-win. France is a lot more socialist luckily.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
justinclift 3mo ago
Meanwhile Palantir is getting in tight with the UK government, to the point of managing the UK's firearms, explosives, and poisons licensing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403043

by boricj 3mo ago

navane 3mo ago

I'm mostly bewildered that the Dutch government was ok with that, and it took way too much effort from the opposition to get them to pivot on this.

irdc 3mo ago

As a Dutch person, I'm not. Dutch administrators are traditionally wary of doing anything themselves that they could conceivably outsource to a commercial party. That also results in endless swarms of locus^H^H^H^H^Hconsultants feeding on our taxes. I hate it, but what can you do, this is sadly what people here keep voting for.

spockz 3mo ago
I’m unaware of this kind of topic ever being one of the points in election time. This as opposed to topics like animal welfare. Sovereignty is only now becoming more visible as a votable topic. Sadly, I don’t know of a way to influence how our government practices IT. Except maybe to work for Logius. And even then there will be the topic of funding.
- microtonal 3mo ago
  I’m unaware of this kind of topic ever being one of the points in election time. IT sovereignty may not have been a topic during elections, but it should be clear to anyone now that the VVD (political party that has been in most governments in the past decades) is a revolving door. When given a choice, they will always prefer letting the market do it/deregulate. This is not limited to IT. Banks, insurance companies, gas companies (Shell), etc. is where they work before they go into politics and/or work after they leave politics.
  - spockz 3mo ago
    Oh sure. This applies to almost all politicians, not just those VVD. They are more sought after because they actually have been in government long. (And indeed, maybe it is even a vicious circle.) However, election topics never were about this kind of meta behaviour and more of the topics. Many people voted for PvdA, GroenLinks, D66, and other parties. Even for the more right wing ones than VVD. The thing is that topics these days are so broad that they do not revolve around left/right or liberal/conservative anymore. On topic, privatisation could perfectly have been paired with an European ideal from the beginning. In fact, before all these shenanigans with the one currently called president started, it was still believed we as “the West” were one hegemony. In that light, things were privatised along the ideals. It is only lately that the ideals changed to include more country sovereignty.

yxhuvud 3mo ago

Governments are not the only players needing working digital id, and sometimes banks are faster to build it.

spockz 3mo ago
Banks have nothing to do with DigiD. There is eidas which allows you to attest your identity using a bank.

Aaargh20318 3mo ago

DigiD is a government project. It's owned and operated by Logius, which is a government-owned entity. Logius outsourced the hosting and infrastructure to Solvinity.

loupol 3mo ago
That's a bit better but it shifts the question: Why did they not mandate national (or at least EU-based) hosting and infra ? It feels a bit insane in retrospect for such a critical digital service ?
- pyrale 3mo ago
  > Why did they not mandate national (or at least EU-based) hosting and infra ? They did, and they moved to block the acquisition of the local company handling it. What's unclear in the article?
  - somewhatgoated 3mo ago
    They didn’t > Currently, DigiD is partially managed by Solvinity, a company owned by a British investor Britain is neither local nor in the EU
    - pyrale 3mo ago
      The company is incorporated in the netherlands, and the workers are there. The corporate structure means the shareholder can't do whatever they want. I don't see why they should bother with who invests in it, when they have the power to do what they just did and block the acquisition.
  - foresterre 3mo ago
    The "local" company is already UK owned though, so at most "European", not national or EU. What I find strange is that the Dutch government does have its own datacenters, e.g. ODC-Noord (1), but they're still looking to outsource the hosting even after the current contract ends in 2027. (1) https://www.odc-noord.nl/ https://www.odc-noord.nl/

carlosjobim 3mo ago

The entire customs system of all of China used to be run by European foreigners. Not because of Western imperialism, but on invitation from the Chinese rulers, as a measure to combat corruption. Some European countries right now have their currency printing and their passport printing outsourced to foreign nations. These things aren't too unusual.

expedition32 3mo ago
The Netherlands is a small but very tasty fish in a pond infested with sharks. None of the sharks ultimately ever managed to agree who gets to eat it- because whoever did would upset the balance between the sharks. But China and America are mega sharks who don't care about balance and want to eat everything or die trying.
boricj 3mo ago
For France it certainly is, probably because of our stubborn focus on strategic autonomy. For example, offshoring passport printing to me sounds like a great opportunity for identity theft and document forgery by people outside of your jurisdiction. I do kinda get the China customs system example though, only because if corruption is bad enough that it's a greater concern than opsec, then you're kinda hosed anyways.
- lucumo 3mo ago
  > For France it certainly is, probably because of our stubborn focus on strategic autonomy. You're seeing people wake up to the threat now, with the opposition against Kyndryl and the Nexperia thing. Somewhat more controversially, I'm also worried about the French government owning large parts of the Dutch defense industry through Thales and Airbus. (And, to a lesser extent, German and Spanish governments.) Very little of the Dutch defense industry is still Dutch-owned. Only Damen comes to mind.
  - boricj 3mo ago
    The days of nationalized French defense companies and state arsenals have been over for quite a while. Assuming I didn't make any mistakes: GIAT was privatized, then renamed to Nexter, then merged with German KMW to form European KNDS and now it's about to do an IPO. All of the French aerospace industry (including missiles) bar Dassault and Thales is inside Airbus. Arquus was bought by Belgian John Cockerill. I could probably cite more if I dug deeper, but while we still have French defense companies like Dassault, Naval Group and Thales, a fair amount of our defense industry is no longer exclusively French owned. And if the French government or owner starts getting uppity, you could always take a page from the Swedes and how they Kockums the shit out of ThyssenKrupp.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

outside1234 3mo ago

Probably because it is wildly expensive to have a government directly run any tech project.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

boondongle 3mo ago

Most National governments embraced globalism and free market solutioning. It worked both ways. American Federal Systems also have European and Indian operators but it gets more restricted depending on what part of the system you're dealing with. Even then, the operators get it wrong. Many "American" firms are being served by Irish, Bulgarian, and Dutch operators for example. When you get to Fedpod, the restrictions are usually tiered, not all or nothing. It's why US firms got caught with Chinese handling data. The question isn't should Europe and even America clean it up - it's how much is legitimate national soverignty and how much is going to be straight mercantilism in the Cloud/SaaS sector.

PeterStuer 3mo ago
"Most National governments embraced globalism and free market" One could say globalists and free marketeers 'embraced' governments.

wolvoleo 3mo ago

The neoliberal party VVD love involving private businesses in government operations, they considered that a win-win. France is a lot more socialist luckily.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

justinclift 3mo ago

Meanwhile Palantir is getting in tight with the UK government, to the point of managing the UK's firearms, explosives, and poisons licensing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403043