Professors concerned about UU's dependence on big tech

UU professors Albert Meijer (Public Innovation) and José van Dijck (Media and Digital Society) have expressed their concerns in an open letter addressed to the Executive Board about our ‘increasing reliance on services from Big Tech companies (particularly Microsoft, Google, Amazon) for our research, teaching and administrative activities.'

An accompanying petition calls on the Executive Board to do something about this digital dependency. It has been signed by over two hundred people in just a few days.

According to the professors, UU is particularly dependent on Microsoft Office 365. UU staff use the programme for e-mail, video calls, and data storage. They also use it to create presentations and write documents. This dependence creates ‘vulnerabilities, especially in light of a rapidly changing geopolitical situation’.

Security and privacy
According to Meijer and Van Dijck, the services provided by big tech companies have ‘significant security and privacy risks’. After all, to access these services, an authentication is required that runs through transatlantic connections. These connections 'may be cut at the whims of the American government', the professors explain.

They also argue that researchers would suffer far-reaching consequences if they were denied access to Microsoft. In such a situation, all research and teaching would come to an immediate halt. We are also losing control over our data.'

European user data
'Microsoft and other companies whose services we rely on can be required by law to share our communications, documents, and sensitive (personal) data with US agencies,' the professors write.

The Cloud Act allows the US government to force technology companies to hand over user data through a warrant or subpoena,  even if that data is stored in Europe. 'The fact that the data is stored on European servers offers no (legal) protection and any protections that would be offered can be circumvented by US authorities without transparency,' the letter says.

Democracy
Meijer and Van Dijck believe that the dependence on big tech is ‘fundamentally at odds with public values like freedom, independence, autonomy and equality.'

The professors are calling on the Executive Board to invest more in ‘local expertise’ and using their own mail server, for example. They also advise collaborating with other European universities ‘on an autonomous academic IT infrastructure', particularly those in Germany and France.