A majority of MPs have urged the cabinet not to extend the contract for running the Dutch government’s DigiD digital identity system if its current operator, Dutch cloud firm Solvinity, is taken over by a US buyer. The current contract ends in August and the cabinet has until 6 May to signal whether it will let it lapse or extend it to 2028.

DigiD is the government login millions of people in the Netherlands use to file a tax return, arrange health insurance, draw a pension, deal with their local council and access government personal data portals.

The system is technically run by Solvinity, which has offices in Amersfoort, Assen and Den Bosch. Its planned takeover by US IT company Kyndryl, a former IBM subsidiary, was announced late last year.

Under US laws such as the Cloud Act, American-owned companies can be required to hand over data to US authorities even when the servers are in Europe. Pieter van Oordt, senior privacy advisor at Logius – the government agency that runs DigiD – told the Volkskrant last week that a Kyndryl takeover would put the personal data of almost everyone in the Netherlands within reach of the US government, which could also cut off Dutch access to DigiD.

He said he spoke out after being unable to get a meeting with junior home affairs minister Eric van der Burg, who oversees the area.

May deadline looming

The motion was filed by Barbara Kathmann of the left-wing GroenLinks-PvdA alliance and passed by a MPs on Wednesday. She told broadcaster NOS a Dutch buyer is already waiting to take over the work.

Junior home affairs minister Eric van der Burg told parliament the same day the contract cannot be broken and that ministers want to wait for advice from the investment screening body BTI, which is currently assessing the national security risks of the Kyndryl deal.

Economic affairs minister Heleen Herbert will take the final decision on whether to approve the takeover itself.

Only one party, the far-right JA21, voted against the motion. MP Daniël van den Berg said the motion amounts to “symbolic politics” and unfairly generalises about all American companies. The Dutch competition body ACM, which assessed the deal separately, has already said it sees no grounds to block it on competition terms.