NS gives IT contract to U.S. provider despite concerns over dependency on American tech
Despite the growing concerns about the Netlerands and Europe’s dependency on American tech companies, NS has awarded a significant portion of its IT infrastructure to a United States-based computer service provider, NRC reports based on the tender documentation. According to the newspaper, the tender shows that the American supplier, DXC Technology, submitted the cheapest bid, but did not score the highest on quality.
In December, NS awarded part of its IT services to Enterprise Services Netherlands, the Dutch subsidiary of the American company DXC Technology. The company will take over hosting, technical application management, and the continuous, real-time monitoring of computer systems. Until recently, the Dutch company KPN handled most of that. The agreement is for a minimum of six years, with an option to extend to 12 years, and is worth up to €400 million, according to NRC.
That puts another bit of the Netherlands’ critical infrastructure - the Dutch railway - partly in American hands. The topic is already high on the political agenda due to the potential American acquisition of Solvinity, the company that manages the cloud on which DigD and MijnOverheid.nl run.
The concerns mainly stem from U.S. laws that American companies and their overseas subsidiaries must comply with. The U.S. has laws that allow the government to request data from companies or prevent companies from servicing certain clients.
“We are aware that this concerns a subsidiary of an American company,” an NS spokesperson told NRC. “This is an issue that NS, like so many other (semi-)governmental organizations and services, is grappling with.”
According to the spokesperson, the systems that the American company will manage are “not mission-critical” and do not process personnel or passenger data. “Critical systems for train operations and information provision are housed with a Dutch IT provider.”
But according to Lokke Moerel, professor of global ICT law in Tilburg, NS is underestimating the severity of its decision. “NS fails to recognize that these hosting services themselves constitute critical infrastructure for the Netherlands. Digital autonomy must be the starting point. If everyone acts like NS, we will never build our own digital infrastructure,” she told NRC.
And it goes beyond that. This €400 milion NS contract could have significantly encouraged Dutch and European providers, Moerel added. IT experts recently told parliament that Dutch companies can provide almost all of the outsourced services with a bit of support.
