Why the Dutch government blocked the takeover of DigiD infrastructure by an American company, and what that says about privacy, digital autonomy, and European data sovereignty.
Why the Dutch government blocked the takeover of DigiD infrastructure by an American company, and what that says about privacy, digital autonomy, and European data sovereignty.
The cabinet is getting waaay to much credit here, they initially wanted to go through with the deal. It wasn’t until major public backlash, multiple experts putting their jobs on the line by going on television saying how bad an idea this was and an official committee strongly advising against it that cabinet changed their mind and chose to block the takeover. They were sitting their pants because of how the US would respond. Had they acted earlier, this could’ve gone much smoother: they could’ve just ended the contract at the company that’s being taken over, move the data to another company that isn’t being taken over. Or even better, they could have ordered to move the infrastructure in-house instead of having some commercial party handle the security of the population it’s most sensitive data.