Brussels: Europe and the Arabs - Agencies
Fears have grown that US President Donald Trump will pressure technology companies to provide the United States with Dutch data or to impose a ban on providing cloud services to Europe, which could cause massive disruptions to public services, experts told Euronews Next.
The Dutch government relies mainly on public cloud services for its work, a type of technical service provided by specialized companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud, among others. User data is stored on servers owned by the service provider and not by the customer itself. Some believe that Dutch ministries are unaware of the risks of this reliance.
A recent report issued by the Dutch Court of Auditors revealed that government services and operations are "threatened by very high risks", to the point of disrupting the country and society. According to what was published by the European news network "Euronews" in Brussels
The report indicated that Amsterdam relies more on cloud services from American technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon, compared to other companies.
In this context, there are growing concerns that US President Donald Trump will pressure tech companies to provide the US with Dutch data or to impose a ban on providing cloud services to Europe, which could cause major disruptions to public services, experts told Euronews Next.

This is not the first time the issue has been raised. Last year, the French data regulator stressed the need to protect sensitive databases from potential disclosure to public authorities in foreign countries.

What are the current risks with the US?

For her part, Maike Okano-Heijmans, a senior researcher at the Clingendael Institute, said that the main risk facing the Dutch government from using the public cloud is the possibility of transferring data to the Trump administration if the companies are asked to do so.

The Republican leader signed the CLOUD Act during his first term. It is legislation that allows US law enforcement agencies to access data stored on any server in the world, in order to help them investigate major crimes.
In this context, Evert-Jan Mulder, founder of digital transformation consultancy Red Bloom, pointed out that other US laws allow for the transfer of data across borders, meaning that these measures are not limited to US citizens only, but include individuals of all nationalities. He added: “Whether you are European, American, or even Chinese, it is the same.” Okano-Heijmans pointed out that the problem does not lie with large companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon themselves, because they abide by the laws of the country in which they operate to maintain customer confidence. However, if there is pressure from the US leadership, these companies may be forced to comply, which creates a real problem.
Although Trump has not specified whether he will use or expand the scope of the “Cloud” Act to access foreign data, one of his first executive orders repealed all security decisions made by former US President Joe Biden, which raised concerns about the impact of this on data transfer between the United States and Europe. If such an overreach occurs, “thousands” of companies and public agencies in the European Union could be forced to stop using cloud services from Google, Microsoft or Amazon, which could cause major disruption to government work.