As Simptel works toward becoming a recognition broker (herkenningsmakelaar) within the Dutch eTD (Elektronische Toegangsdiensten) ecosystem, we have encountered challenges that are typical in regulated government environments. One issue stands out: connecting new digital services takes too long and is costly. The Dutch eTD ecosystem has historically relied on the
Looking back at 2025, one thing stands out to me: trust has quietly become the bottleneck in modern communication. We have made real progress in digital identity and security on the web, yet voice still relies on assumptions that belong to another era. At the same time, AI and modern,
The Challenge In 2020, Vion Food Group partnered with Simptel to improve the experience of Dutch dairy farmers in an iterative way. The mission was clear: enable farmers to securely and easily communicate and share their data with Vion. Together with JoinData, who provided consent management and the integration with
At some point we realised something interesting. Our platform doesn’t just build environments, it also builds itself. We’re the first organisation using it. The root tenant. The one that enables access for partners and customers. That means we’re both the creator and the user. And that’s
Customer data plays a critical role within your business. When dealing with PII, everybody starts saying, no we do not want to store that... but how does your customer then do business with you? Payments, accounts, support, subscriptions, all of it depends on identity data. And the investments you make
Six years ago, while building one of the first versions of our platform at Simptel, I met Deep. Two years later, I stepped off a plane in Ahmedabad with my brother Alexander to attend his wedding, a vibrant Gujarati celebration with more than 400 guests. What began as a working
We are currently onboarding all our applications into a identity governance administration tool. And by all, I mean without compromise. If an application cannot be onboarded, we cut it from our landscape. When you go through hundreds of applications like this, patterns become painfully clear. Some companies truly own access
Introduction This blog was inspired by a recent conversation with my account manager at Kong, who explained how the company will govern its Open Source distribution model from version 3.9 onwards. That triggered me to reflect more broadly on how Open Source projects are governed, and how organizations should
Data Protection Measures
At Simptel, we apply two guiding principles in the design of our infrastructure: least surface exposure and zero-trust networks. These principles ensure that every interaction with our platform presents the smallest possible attack surface, and that no step or connection is implicitly trusted. In this text, we will explain step
Every time you click “Login with Microsoft or Google” you’re experiencing something called federated authentication. It’s a form of Single Sign-On (SSO) that allows you to access multiple services without creating a new username and password for each. Instead, you sign in once with a trusted identity provider
Introduction Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) are tools and methods designed to protect individual privacy while still enabling useful data processing. According to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), PETs protect privacy by reducing personal data or preventing unnecessary processing, all without losing system functionality (ENISA, 2018). In the context of
News
Cybersecurity can feel like alphabet soup: IAM, IGA, InfoSec, Zero Trust. They sound complicated, but at their core, they’re all about one simple question: 👉 Who should be allowed to do what? Let’s break this down in plain English. 👤 IAM: Who You Are and What You Can Do Identity