Ferenc Zsolt Szabó (born 24 November 1961) is a Dutch politician. He served as a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

between 2003 and 2005 for the conservative-liberal

People's Party for Freedom and Democracy The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ( , VVD) is a Conservative liberalism, conservative-liberal List of political parties in the Netherlands, political party in the Netherlands. The VVD, whose forerunner was the Freedom Party (Netherl ...

(VVD), and he has been State Secretary for Kingdom Relations and Digitalisation on behalf of the right-wing populist

Party for Freedom The Party for Freedom ( , PVV) is a right-wing populist, far-right political party in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders is the founder, party leader, and sole registered member of the party. Founded in 2006 as the successor to Wilders' one-ma ...

in the

Schoof cabinet The Schoof cabinet is the current demissionary cabinet of the Netherlands, sworn in on 2 July 2024. Led by independent politician and civil servant Dick Schoof as prime minister of the Netherlands, the cabinet was formed after the 2023 Dutch gen ...

since July 2024.

Career

He was a member of the House of Representatives from 3 June 2003 to 30 November 2006. He was the VVD's spokesperson for ICT and development cooperation, and second spokesperson for foreign affairs. During this period, Szabó was of the opinion that the Netherlands, "partly under pressure from international legislation", would soon see the introduction of the

electronic signature An electronic signature, or e-signature, is data that is logically associated with other data and which is used by the signatory to sign the associated data. This type of signature has the same legal standing as a handwritten signature as long as ...

and

identity cards An identity document (abbreviated as ID) is a documentation, document proving a person's Identity (social science), identity. If the identity document is a plastic card it is called an ''identity card'' (abbreviated as ''IC'' or ''ID card''). ...

with biometric features (

fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfa ...

and

iris scan Iris recognition is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on video images of one or both of the irises of an individual's eyes, whose complex patterns are unique, stable, and can b ...

). In early June 2004, he asked State Secretary

Medy van der Laan Medy Catharina van der Laan (born 14 August 1968) is a Dutch businesswoman, former civil servant and retired politician who served as State Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in charge of culture, media and art under P ...

for an explanation about the use of open source software in the department, because Szabó wanted to prevent "OSS fetishism" in the government. He later served as vice president of IT consulting firm

Capgemini Capgemini SE is a French Multinational corporation, multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company, headquartered in Paris, France. History Capgemini was founded by Serge Kampf in 1967 as an enterprise management and d ...

. Simultaneously, he was chairman of the foundation that manages the Dutch

do not call list A do not call list or do not call registry is a list of personal phone numbers that are off-limits to telemarketers in some countries. Do not call lists may also be held privately by a company, listing numbers that they will not call. National ...

, and he was vice chairman of ECP, an

information society An information society is a society or subculture where the usage, Content creation, creation, information distribution, distribution, manipulation and information integration, integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drive ...

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

. After the PVV, VVD,

NSC NSC may refer to: Banking and investment * National Sort Code, an Irish bank code * Nomura Securities Co, an investment bank Computing * National Software Centre, an Irish organization * National Supercomputer Centre in Sweden * NetShow Channe ...

, and BBB formed the

, Szabó was sworn in as State Secretary for Kingdom Relations and Digitalisation on 2 July 2024. He serves on behalf of the PVV, and he ended his VVD membership. Szabó stated that he wanted a more centralized approach to arranging and purchasing digital technologies in national and local governments. He planned to establish a coordinating department that could be consulted. He called the previous approach fragmented and unstandardised, and he said that it was no longer fit for technologies such as

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

quantum computing A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of wave-particle duality, both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using s ...

, and

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

Personal life

Szabó is married and has three children. Both parents of Szabó are Hungarian. Upon his selection as state secretary, he clarified that he did not possess the Hungarian nationality.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Szabo, Zsolt 1961 births Politicians from Amsterdam Dutch MPs 2003–2006 People's Party for Freedom and Democracy politicians Party for Freedom politicians Capgemini people Living people Dutch people of Hungarian descent State Secretaries for the Interior of the Netherlands