The Dutch central bank De Nederlandsche Bank announced it is moving its essential cloud services from US giants Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to Schwartz Digits, the data services arm of the Lidl low-cost supermarket group, originally built to support the retailer’s grocery business and now a secure data services provider to European businesses and governments. The Dutch government also signed its first deals with StackIT, a Schwartz Digits subsidiary that already counts Commerzbank and the Hamburg Port Authority as customers, with justice and security minister David van Weel calling it “an important step in reducing our dependence on parties outside Europe and strengthening our digital resilience.” The trend is being driven by the 2018 US Cloud Act, which can require American tech operators to hand over data to US authorities even when stored in Europe, with the International Criminal Court recently moving its data operations to openDesk from the German-backed ZenDis Center for Digital Sovereignty after Donald Trump sanctioned ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan over Gaza-related cases.
