Willem-Jelle der Nederlanden

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“Money, money, money, Must be funny, In the rich man’s world.” Well, you probably now wonder how the Abba song relates to the Dutch government and failing with its IT. This has to do with the main subject for this article: the Dutch Tax Authority. Especially the information technology systems at the Dutch Tax Authority are falling behind. How does this come about? And why does it seem that the Dutch government can’t get any form of grip on its IT?

Lack of Expertise

The Netherlands Court of Audit (NCA) released an article in 2019, stating that the Dutch Government fails to get control on its IT-systems (Algemene Rekenkamer, 2019). They mention that around 25% of all IT-investments on the public IT, is to do with “renovating” and upgrading the IT-systems. This seems like a fair amount, but the other 75% is basically out of sight. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that more than half of all the IT-systems at the Tax Authority are outdated (Tweakers, 2019).

One of those systems which needs an update, is the system for taxing incomes. Back in 1982, the authority introduced this system. It must be known that this system runs without any big outages, which is a good thing, but it is impossible to change any tax classes due to the legacy software. Moreover, the system is rather implemented with other IT systems, which makes it even more difficult to change the software. To actually change this software, the authority needs expertise in its employees. However, the NCA stated that the Tax Authority is short of these employees. Therefore, it will take even longer to upgrade the system from the legacy code base.

What the Legacy?!

I think it’s interesting to see that in a lot of articles I found on this matter, terms such as “old” and “outdated” systems appear. I already dropped the word before, but in IT we call this legacy systems. ForumOne (2021) wrote an interesting blog on modernizing government legacy systems. They mention that legacy systems are problematic if:

It cannot integrate with new systems
It doesn’t meet modern security requirements
Data is becoming increasingly siloed
Maintenance is costly and in some cases wasteful
Compliance with regulations (such as GDPR) is becoming increasingly more difficult

To renew information technology systems, ForumOne mentions an interesting plan of steps to just get started. Some of the interesting steps I will now elaborate on. At first, it is important to have an idea of what the legacy system is capable of and where the bottlenecks are. Then, it’s extremely important to know what you are going to change. Therefore, a Change Management plan is very crucial. The third step mentioned is that you should not wish to replace the whole legacy at once. The Tax Authority should start small and increase step by step, by working Agile.

And now?

If I think back of the news that has been published in the last few years, I feel like the Dutch government doesn’t feel the urge to really get this working. Especially the fact that there is no dedicated ministry for defining and executing a Digital or IT strategy, is something that I don’t understand. In my opinion, this ministry should be responsible for taking control back on the finance. Especially getting an overview of all the costs, not only for the governmental machinery, but also for the municipalities. I’m curious to see if the next cabinet will introduce a dedicated ministry of Information Technology, to get the full control back.

Algemene Rekenkamer. (2019, May 14). Rijksoverheid heeft informatiebeveiliging en IT beheer nog niet op orde. Nieuwsbericht | Algemene Rekenkamer. Retrieved 6 October 2022, from https://www.rekenkamer.nl/actueel/nieuws/2019/05/15/rijksoverheid-heeft-informatiebeveiliging-en-it-beheer-nog-niet-op-orde

Modernizing Government Legacy Systems. (2022, March 17). Forum One. Retrieved 6 October 2022, from https://www.forumone.com/insights/blog/modernizing-government-legacy-systems/

Jansen, J. (2019, May 15). ‘Meer dan de helft van ict-systemen van de Belastingdienst is verouderd’. Tweakers. Retrieved 6 October 2022, from https://tweakers.net/nieuws/152820/meer-dan-de-helft-van-ict-systemen-van-de-belastingdienst-is-verouderd.html

Jansen, J. (2019a, April 15). Minister stopt ontwikkeling ict-systeem voor NVWA wegens kostenoverschrijdingen. Tweakers. Retrieved 6 October 2022, from https://tweakers.net/nieuws/151588/minister-stopt-ontwikkeling-ict-systeem-voor-nvwa-wegens-kostenoverschrijdingen.html

Header image from: https://www.computable.nl/artikel/blogs/overheid/7335309/5260614/hoe-grote-it-projecten-bij-overheid-falen.html

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Aren’t we lucky to find the quickest route to our friends’ house via the Google Maps application? Or in case that we want to login at an e-commerce site, that we can just login with our Google account? Google is such a massive vendor of software, that we don’t even search for things, but we actually “Google” it. But, are we actually so lucky that we can use their products for free?

Despite the simple answer being yes, I would like to give you some more context on why the answer of no also could be a valid answer. Therefore, we’ll first take a look at the business model that Google utilizes. Have you ever heard of the following statement?

“Google Users – You’re The Product,
Not The Customer” – (Keper, 2013)

This statement refers to the users of Google’s services, who think they consume the product, but in fact it is the other way around, but how exactly?

To understand how that statement refers to the business model of Google, it is important to realize that Google tracks your behavior. This tracking not only happens within their own products like Google Maps, Search and Chrome, but also on your favorite e-commerce sites and even in some applications on your mobile phone. This makes them very powerful with data on what you do, what you see and what you like. See where we are heading to?

By knowing what you do, see and like, Google has much information about you. With this information, they serve you with adverts, tailored to your preferences and interests. These ads are being bought by other firms that want to sell you their products or services. Companies are way more willing to pay if they know their ads are ending up by the people who actually are interested in buying a product.

So now the question is, are we actually lucky to use Google’s products for free? For me personally, I am happy with using Google’s products in exchange for my data. Though, it must be noted that I also make use of browser-extensions and network-level extensions that block third-party-tracking. However, even if I didn’t have these blockers, I think I would still use Google’s product. The very ease and great usability isn’t worth it to stop using the services. Oh, and by the way, what should we use other then Google? Aren’t we “trapped” in it together?

Exactly for that reason, regulations are being made by the governmental institutions. Think of the GDPR, which is already a step in the right direction to protect consumers’ digital rights. My feeling says that these types of regulations will only grow more in presence. For example, some regulations on preventing third party trackers are in the making. However, Google already is working on server-side level tracking. Isn’t it a cat and mouse game after all?

Are you happy to use Google and the other products for free, in exchange for the data you leave? Or are you willing to pay for their services in return that they don’t track you?

How the Dutch government fails in IT

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The beauty of the free-to-use concept, or is it?

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