Nine in ten Belgian municipalities use Microsoft or Google for email
Published
Almost all Belgian municipalities use the same large American companies for their email. Nine in ten municipalities rely on Microsoft or Google for their mail traffic. This is what recent research shows, and it is now being widely discussed in our country.
This situation raises questions about security and control. When a municipality stores all of its post with a single company, it is heavily dependent on that service. If there is a outage, or if a digital attack takes place, this could have major consequences for the work of the government and for residents.
Experts point out that there is another issue as well. Data stored on servers of foreign companies falls under the legislation of the country where those servers are located. For some municipalities, this can be a problem, especially when it concerns personal data of citizens. Some experts therefore ask whether Belgian authorities should not instead choose their own solution.
So far, the municipalities have not announced any major changes. Microsoft and Google are easy to use and much cheaper than an in-house system. Still, the debate about whether Europe and Belgium should become more independent in the digital domain remains current.
Sources: De Morgen
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