The Belgian Ministry of Justice is launching its own app as an alternative to WhatsApp or Signal. To this end, it has (among other things) drawn on the 30 million euro European recovery fund. The so-called Beam app is intended solely for the 750,000 federal civil servants. Colleagues in Flanders, Brussels or Wallonia are not involved. Yet another case of fragmented resources.
The messaging app Beam, short for Belgian Economic and Administrative Messenger, was developed by Belgian Secure Communications (BSC), founded two years ago, which drew on the €30 million European recovery budget earmarked for cybersecurity. BSC is a federal initiative of the then Minister of Justice, Paul Van Tichelt (Anders), and currently falls under the remit of Annelies Verlinden (CD&V). The government agency BoSA (Policy and Support), which is responsible for the digital transformation within the federal government, is only partially involved and handles authentication (via itsme or EID). BoSA reports to Deputy Prime Ministers Vanessa Matz (Les Engagés – digitalisation) and Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V – budget).
The fact that the federal government is developing a secure communication system is not a bad thing in itself. Other countries have gone before us in this regard. But why were the regions not involved from the outset? At the start of this year, it was still being said at the BOSA New Year’s reception that the various authorities needed to collaborate more…
Now they say they are ‘looking into’ whether the solution would also work for the other authorities. And then there is this: the police (under the authority of Minister Bernard Quentin (MR)) have no integration budget for the Beam app. Moreover, they already have their own encrypted messaging service via the extremely expensive Astrid network.
It is indicative of the fragmentation and, above all, the lack of communication between the various authorities. Just think of the federal government’s Mygov app and Flanders’ ‘Mijn burgerprofiel’. Let’s move away from this silo mentality and think together about the digital future of little Belgium.
