Zuid-Holland ordered to improve their cybersecurity

The province of Zuid-Holland must develop a plan to improve its cybersecurity. The members of the Provincial Council have unanimously submitted this request to the provinces coalition government. Last year, a data leak in an internal information system owned by the province was discovered, which led to the Zuid-Holland province being closely monitored by the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP).

Zuid-Holland is working on a solution, according to BBB politician Frank Rijkaart, who handles personnel and organization policy for the province. “The risks of cybersecurity are increasingly ending up on our radar. We have a budget to tackle this,” Rijkaart added. He promised the provincial government that he would keep them up to date regarding the progress being made.

Council member Luuk Wilson of JA21, who submitted the motion, pointed to the auditor’s report on the 2023 annual accounts. “It states that significant steps still need to be taken in the field of information security within our province. In a time when cyber threats are increasing, our information systems and associated security measures must be up to date and effective,” Wilson added. He pleaded for investments in policy, hardware, procedures, and behavior.

An employee of the province discovered a data leak in the internal system in September of last year. The leak allowed employees to access privacy-sensitive data that they should not have been able to access. Zuid-Holland contacted the AP instantly but only released details from the incident in April due to the ongoing investigation.

The province has submitted a plan of action to the privacy regulator. “The steps that need to be taken include improving our handling of data leaks, improving system logging, and limiting access to systems,” an AP spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that privacy and information management are not in order and that it will take time to fix this.

Based on advice from an IT bureau who were examining the quality of the provincial systems, the provincial government decided to invest 23 million euros in an ‘information transition’ in 2022.

This money is meant for “the remediation and modernization of the platforms and systems and the information stored in there.”