Dutch digital government embraces open ICT standards

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Dit is een Engelstalig nieuwsbericht in het kader van World Standards Day. 

Since 2006 the Forum Standaardisatie has been advising Dutch government on the mandatory and recommended use of open ICT standards. In this 16 year time span, the Forum increased the awareness and adoption of open ICT standards that are critical to a secure, interoperable and vendor independent digital government. Digital services, systems and infrastructure of the Dutch government now commonly build upon open standards such as https and DNSSEC.

Forum Standaardisatie works as an independent advisory board to the (link is external)Dutch digital government, and is made up of around 20 members from all layers of government, the private sector and academia. The Forum maintains a '(link is external)comply or explain' list of open ICT standards that public organisations must acquire and deploy wherever applicable in projects with an ICT budget of over 50,000 Euros. It also (link is external)monitors the use of open ICT standards in public services and tenders, and helps governmental organisations deploy them. On European level, Forum Standaardisatie contributes to (link is external)Interoperable Europe and the (link is external)Multi Stakeholder Forum on ICT Standardisation.

As Larissa Zegveld, general director of (link is external)Kennisnet and chairwoman of the Forum Standaardisation, puts it:

Over the past 16 years, Forum Standaardisatie has made a difference in making Dutch digital government more secure, interoperable and vendor independent through the use of open ICT standards.