Dependence on US tech giants is high on the political agenda. Big tech can shut off access to its software at any moment, as the International Criminal Court experienced earlier this year. Many are concerned about this.
On Tuesday, these concerns culminated in a broadly supported call to outgoing education minister Gouke Moes: the government must work together with higher education institutions to combat dependence on big tech. All 150 MPs voted in favour of the motion.
Breaking dependence
Minister Moes already indicated during last week’s debate on digitalisation and higher education that he isn’t opposed to the idea. But now he has to act on it. The House wants the government to look to European alternatives more often, and higher education institutions could help with that.
After all, these institutions are “already taking steps to break the dependence through cooperation and joint procurement processes”, note GroenLinks–PvdA and D66, the parties that tabled the motion. The government should therefore work “structurally” with the education sector to jointly reduce dependence on big tech.
Nextcloud
A day before the vote in the House of Representatives, SURF announced that it intends to run an extensive pilot with German office software. The IT cooperative of Dutch education and research wants around two thousand students and staff to spend a year emailing, word-processing and video-calling with Nextcloud. This software can take over several tasks currently fulfilled by Microsoft.
Bought up
However, two weeks ago it became clear that the playing field isn’t entirely level. US tech companies can easily buy up their European competitors. This now threatens to happen to Solvinity, a successful Dutch firm that, among other things, is in charge of keeping DigiD secure.
Jacquelien Scherpen, rector magnificus of the University of Groningen, therefore said last week that European alternatives must be protected from the purchasing power of American firms. “We must ensure that the independence we are fighting for does not slip through our fingers again.”
Public transport
Incidentally, on Tuesday the House of Representatives also approved a request for minister Moes to talk to public transport companies about the planned multimillion-euro cut. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is a major client of Dutch railways and regional transport operators because of the student public transport pass it’s paying for. Now that students are using it less, Moes is proposing a 225 million euros cut.
But what will be the consequences for transport companies? Could it leave regional operators struggling? Last week, Moes referred MPs to his colleague at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, but the House doesn’t accept that.
Left-wing parties backed the GroenLinks–PvdA motion. In the end, it secured a majority thanks to JA21 and Forum voor Democratie. They, too, agree that the minister must first assess the impact of this cut “before irreversible decisions are taken”.