This guest contribution was republished from LinkedIn with permission from the author.
This month, the German federal government announced a notable decision through the so-called Deutschland-Stack: across all levels of government, from federal ministries down to municipalities, only two document formats are now permitted. Open Document Format (ODF) and PDF/UA. The popular Microsoft formats such as .docx (MS Word), .xlsx (MS Excel) and .pptx (MS PowerPoint) fall outside this framework.
March 31, 2026
Imagine waking up one morning to find that the local council no longer knows who is entitled to social support. That the hospital can no longer access patient records. That the police have lost their communication systems. Not because of an attack, but simply because one American company somewhere far away has a technical outage, raises its prices, or suddenly refuses access.
Sounds far-fetched? Less than you might think. But this article is not about fear. It is about what becomes possible when you make conscious choices.
March 24, 2026
Imagine: the year is 1914. Somewhere on the Western Front, a small pigeon is released with a message tied to its leg. It doesn’t know why. It doesn’t know for whom. It simply flies — reliable, unseen, tireless — and delivers the message.
For centuries, the pigeon was the gold standard of secure communication. No wires to tap. No central server to hack. Decentralised by nature. And surprisingly hard to intercept.
March 21, 2026
US Congress demands messages from European officials via Microsoft and Google
What the Belgian privacy and tech community has been warning about for years is now confirmed: those who communicate via American cloud services communicate under American oversight.
Brussels, March 17, 2026
On March 16, 2026, the US House of Representatives formally reminded ten major technology companies (Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Microsoft, OpenAI, Reddit, Rumble, TikTok, and xAI) of their obligation to hand over all communications with European institutions to the Judiciary Committee. The letters, signed by Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, specifically target messages exchanged by European officials in the context of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
March 17, 2026
The Reality of Digital Dependency
DNS records from the previous article paint a clear picture: over 70% of Belgian public institutions (e.g. hospitals, police, schools, defence, municipalities) rely on Microsoft’s cloud for daily operations. Systems run smoothly. Salaries arrive, patients receive care, lessons continue. The instinct to maintain what works makes sense.
The challenge comes from concentration: a single foreign platform supporting critical workflows, subject to distant laws and remote management. By late 2025, US providers held over 70% of Europe’s cloud market, local alternatives below 15%. Belgium’s situation highlights what happens when public services align on one stack. Recent events show these dependencies carry real consequences, but they also illuminate substantial opportunities ahead.
February 13, 2026
