Pioneering Dutch IRMA app points the way for new European digital identity

Users keep full control of their personal data

• Tuesday 22 June 2021

Earlier this month, the European Commission set out a framework for a European digital identity. The plan envisages an e-wallet for every European citizen, resident and business, enabling them to validate their identity and share all kinds of digitally authenticated documents. So that, whenever you need to show something like a driving licence and educational qualification – or demonstrate your medical status in a situation like the current pandemic – you'll be able to do so using the new system. The European Commission will provide the legal framework (based on eIDAS) and the technical standards for interoperability. Individual member states and commercial players will then ensure that, for example, a Dutch ID app works in France and a French citizen can prove their identity in the Netherlands. 

Various ID apps are under development around the EU and beyond. But, in IRMA, the Netherlands already has a working app that's ready for large-scale rollout now. IRMA does exactly what the Commission is suggesting the European Digital Identity should do. You could even say the Commission has completely embraced the philosophy underpinning the Dutch IRMA app.

Read the full article: https://bit.ly/3adqUSY

BPN 1428 Four million domain names with nl-extension

This month the 4 millionth Dutch country domain name has been registered. On the list of country domains The Netherlands ranks fourth behind Germany, UK and China. SIDN, the bureau responsible for the registration of the nl-domain, receives daily 2800 registrations a day.

Worldwide there are 250 country domains. The Netherlands is ranking fourth on the list of domain registrations behind Germany (13,7 million domain names), UK (8,6 million domain names) and China (6,8 million domain names). Combined with demographic data of 16 million Dutch people every fourth Dutchman has a domain name, giving the Netherlands the highest domain density in the world. In the Netherlands 93 per cent of the Dutch population has access to internet.

With such a high number of domain names inventiveness is essential in designing new unique domain names. The length of domain names is 63 characters long. Part of the number of domain names is just being used for personal e-mail addresses. Part of the raise of the number of domain names, 25 per cent, can be ascribed to this phenomenon.

Registrations are being made by SIDN and almost 2000 registrars. SIDN will celebrate its 15th year jubilee next year. In the same year the 25th year of the nl-domain will be celebrated.

Facts & figures
• In totally 5,1 million unique domain names with nl-extension have been registered.
• Of the 5,1 million domain names with nl-extension 1,1 million have been discontinued.
• The nl-domain name has a markets hare of 72 per cent, followed by .the com-extension with 14 per cent and eu-extension with 8 per cent.
• 38 households of the 100 Dutch households have a broadband connection, which makes Holland the worldwide frontrunner
• Most of the domain names with a nl-extension are located in Amsterdam; also in large university cities there are many domain holders.
• The average length of a domain name counts 13 characters, while most domains have a length of 11 characters.

BPN 1428

Tags: domain name

BPN 1245 Dutch cyber crime Code of Conduct in effect

The Minister for Foreign Trade Heemskerk kicked off the 'Notice-and-Take-Down' Code of Conduct in The Hague today. The Code sets out how internet companies are to handle reports about illegal websites. Under the terms of the Code of Conduct, illegal websites hosted from the Netherlands will eventually be removed. Substantial progress fighting spam, spyware and malware has been made over the past years. The new code will help to tackle other illegal activities on the internet, including handling stolen goods, discrimination or phishing.

The code of Conduct is based on good practices from businesses, governments and other parties involved in fighting cybercrime. The Code has been drawn up under the patronage of the National Infrastructure Cybercrime (Ministry of Economic Affairs) by market parties including KPN, XS4ALL, ISPConnect, Dutch Hosting Provider Association, NLKabel, Ziggo, UPC, CAIW, Zeelandnet and domain register SIDN. Ministries, the police and investigation services and organisations including Marktplaats/eBay and the copyright police BREIN collaborated in setting up the code. Affiliated businesses - 85% of all access providers and several hosting providers - hereby send a clear signal that the internet is not to be used for illegal practices.

Those responsible for placing illegal content on the internet are often difficult to trace. As reports about illegal Dutch sites are rarely acted upon, these sites often remain online. The Code sets out the agreements between participants and their specific roles in dealing with reports they receive. In principle, internet users can report any illegal content they come across to those responsible for placing the content on the net. If this is not possible or if they don't know who to approach, users can report their find to the next party down the chain. This may be the manager of a discussion forum, the company that hosts the relevant website, the service provider or, as a last resort, the police. These other parties in the chain will make every effort to get the information off line. The new Code will become effective today.

The Code will be followed up later this year with more measures to fight cybercrime. For instance, a ban on sending spam to companies will be introduced from early next year.

Blog Posting Number: 1245

Tags: cybercrime, phishing, spam, spyware, malware

BPN 1160 More than 3 mln .nl domains

Daily more than 1700 .nl domains are registered by SIDN, the Dutch national domain registry. This month the milestone of 3 million .nl domains was passed; it is now the fourth largest country domain in internet.

Presently there are 250 country domains. The Netherlands was one of the first country domain, when the research institute CWI registered the first .nl domain on May 1, 1986. Ever since registrations have continued to such an extent, that there is one registration for every five inhabitants. In terms of penetration, The Netherlands are the first of the pack. However in terms of numbers The Netherlands rank fourth behind Germany with 12 million .de domains, behind China with almost 12 ml .cn domains and behind the UK with almost 7 million .co.uk. Last year the .nl domains in The Netherlands grew with 23 per cent.

The large number of .nl domains is linked to the use of internet and especially broadband. In 2007 more than 82 per cent of the Dutch households had access to internet. Globally this is third place behind Korea and Denmark and it is 25 per cent above the OECD average. The Netherlands is second in broadband connections with 35 per cent behind Denmark with 36 per cent. Of the Dutch companies 97 per cent uses internet. Of the Dutch consumers 81 per cent is weekly online, even up to 12 hours. Nine out of ten Dutch internet users can not live without internet.

Facts & figures- .nl-domain names are the longest with an average of 16 characters, while other TLDs are 13 characters long.
- The most .nl domain holders live in Amsterdam. But university cities like Groningen, Enschede, Nijmegen and Eindhoven yield many .nl domains.
- 66% of the holders use the .nl domain for a personal e-mail address.
- The most expensive .nl domain is the domain for soccer voetbal.nl which was sold for 1 million guilders (500.000 euro).
- The prices for the auctioned .nl domain names rose with 50 per cent from 1000 euro to 1500 euro.
- The market shares in The Netherlands: .nl 70 per cent, .com 14 per cent en .eu 9 per cent
- The share of consumer .nl-holders was 29 per cent op 1 January 2007 en 33 per cent op 1 January 2008.

Source: SIDN, July 2008

Blog Posting Number: 1160

Tags: domain

BPN 1121 Covenant on Dutch domains

The vice minister for Economic Affairs and the foundation Internet domain registration Netherlands (SIDN) are underwriting a covenant regarding registration and administration of .nl domains.

Presently the foundation has registered more than 2,8 million nl. domains and is the fourth largest country domain in the world. In the Netherlands more than 80 per cent of all domains are .nl domains. The domains are registered and administered by the independent foundation SIDN.

So far the foundation has worked on the principle of self regulation. It has been at the basis of the explosive growth of internet in the Netherlands. The covenant between the government and the SIDN confirms this principle of self-regulation. In the covenant the principles of continuity and sovereignty of the nl. domains have been recorded. Other agreements have been recorded in order to keep the nl domain accessible for internet and e-mail under all circumstances. The covenant is the result of talks between the government and SIDN started in 2005.

SIDN has been under fire recently with the introduction of numeric URLs in the nl domain. A few ISPs had chalked code in order to pick up a large number of numeric URLs. Despite the fact that the handing out of the numeric URLs was on the basis first come, first serve it became clear that most of the numeric URLs were in the hands of a very few ISPs. In the aftermath, the few ISPs were asked to return most of the numeric URLs and they did, completely shocked by the public indignation of their greediness. The returned numeric URLs were handed out in a second round

Blog Posting Number: 1121

Tags: domain, URLdomain, URL

BPN 1046 Dutch numeric domains partly in rebound

The Dutch domain organisation SIDN has reclaimed a large number of numeric domains from two companies. The numeric domains had been hijacked by using excessive computer power during the landrush at the end of February. The foundation SIDN got a lot of criticism from the ISP Association and from politician. There was even a call for removal of the managing director, who claimed that every thing had gone according to the rule book. The ISP Association held a survey among its members; 97 per cent of the responding ISPs though that the procedure was unfair and two third thought that the procedure should be redone. In the meantime SIDN started its own survey and has now reported on the results.

The SIDN examination contains the most important data and results of the analyses and survey, held among the participants of the landrush. The method for the landrush was chosen on the basis of a unanimous recommendation by participants of the Domain debate 2006. Previous to the landrush the interests of holders of existing numeric brands were guaranteed during a sunrise procedure. During the landrush in total 14.409 unique numeric domains were registered by 298 ISPs. The amount represents less than 0,5 per cent of the present .nl domains. However two ISPs did acquire major parts of numeric domains by using excessive computer power. One of the parties, MijnAlbum, had spent no less than 35.000 euro in computer capacity to capture 2.579 numeric domains.

SIDN has now made an agreement with the two parties to return a substantial part of the numeric numbers, acquired by the companies. 4060 domains, selected by SIDN, have been returned without the possibility of cherry picking. They will be re-issued among the participants of the landrush.

SIDN hopes to have solved this question to the satisfaction of the participating ISPs. It has drawn the conclusion that it will have to dictate more regulating and limiting measures against ISPs, acting as brokers, and will have to monitor the process more intensively with the possibility to interfere in the process.

SIDN indirectly admits that the procedure was wrong and has made amends by correcting the procedure. The remark of the managing director that the procedure had gone to the rule book, indicates that SIDN had not foreseen any hijacking. Yet the foundation hides behind the unanimous recommendation of the method by participants of the Domain Debate 2006.

From the SIDN report (which is only in Dutch) some funny facts appear. The most requested numeric domain was 007.nl; the domain was eventually awarded to FunBit in Leiden. Also 00.nl, 777.nl and 06.nl were sought after domains.

Blog Posting Number: 1046

Tags: domains, numeric domainsdomain, numeric domain, domain distribution

2,5 million NL domains

Last week Wednesday the counter of the Dutch domain registrar SIDN stood at 2,5 million domain names with the suffix .nl. Presently the Netherlands rank fifth in the country code league, after the EU which registered more than n domain names since April of this year.



The Dutch domains have been growing steadily since 1996, when SIDN was founded by Boudewijn Nederkoorn (MD of SURFnet), Ted Lindgreen (MD of NLnet) en Piet Beertema (Centre for Mathematics and informatics). Piet Beertema was the godfarther of the .nl suffix and the first Dutch registrar since 1986, when the suffix.nl came into existence as a country domain name (ccTLD). When SIDN started to structure the rules for application better in 2003 there has been a continuous growth in .nl names. In 2003 the milestone of 1 million domain names was reached; three years later in August 2006 2 million Dutch domain names had been registered.

The Netherlands ranks fifth in the list of country codes. SIDN offered the following list of countries
1. Germany (.de): 11.159.466 domain names
2. China (.cn): 6.149.851 domain names
3. UK (co.uk): 6.126.785 .co.uk domain names
4. Europe (.eu): 2.514.525, domain names
5. Netherlands (.nl): 2.000.000 domain names
6. Argentina (.ar): 1.343.715) domain names
7. Italy (.it): 1.325.188) domain names
8. USA (.us): 1.3 million domain names
9. Brasil (.br): 1.134.533) domain names
10. Switzerland (.ch) 975.357) domain names

The suffix .eu has passed the Dutch suffix.nl in less than half a year, since the EU register was opened in April 2007. Despite this competition the Dutch registrations have realised a growth of 25 pct. Also the abolishment of private name domains did not stabilise the figures. Since 2003 it was possible for private persons to register their name for a domain. Not much use was made of this; besides it gave problems with frequent names in Dutch like Jansen, Janssen, Janssens. In 2007 SIDN decided not to give out those names any longer to private persons and offered to those who possessed such a domain name money to have the name scrapped.

Blog Posting Number: 838

Tags: domain name