The responsibility behind reliable systems

Security as responsibility

For Jarek, responsible digitalisation starts with a simple idea: when more of life becomes digital, the risks become bigger too. »Years ago, you used your phone to call, text, or play Snake,« he says. »Now you can manage banking, sign contracts, and arrange almost your entire life digitally.« That makes security essential, particularly in public sector systems that people depend on in daily life. 

»When citizens use a public system, they often don’t have a choice,« Jarek explains. »Errors in our work can have real consequences for the many people who rely on these systems.« For him, secure digitalisation means protecting personal data, keeping systems available, and making sure critical services continue to work when people need them. 

Thinking beyond the checklist

Jarek’s focus on security is visible in how he approaches ownership. It is not enough to follow a process or complete a checklist. The real responsibility lies in asking whether the checklist is complete in the first place. 

»You can tick off every item, but you also need to ask whether anything is missing,« he says. »Do we need someone else to look at it? Are there points we haven’t considered?« That mindset also shapes how he leads his team. Instead of simply assigning tasks, he tries to delegate responsibility. He encourages people to think critically, challenge assumptions, and understand the possible consequences of technical choices. 

Making maintenance matter

That approach became especially important in his work on Studielink, the platform used for higher education applications in the Netherlands. 

The team faced a familiar challenge: balancing continued development with maintaining the long-term reliability of the platform. As new features and improvements were introduced, Jarek also saw the importance of investing in the underlying application and its maintenance. »If you don’t maintain the application, you increase the risk of security vulnerabilities, data leaks, system failures, performance degradation and higher support costs.« he says. 

To explain the importance of maintenance, he compared the system to a car. »You can add a spoiler, but if the check engine light is on, you first need to know what is happening under the bonnet. Otherwise, the car might not keep running.« 

Through months of collaboration and conversations with the client, the team helped establish a new way of working with explicit attention to maintenance, security, and prioritisation. For Jarek, it was a clear example of responsible digitalisation in practice: not only delivering what is visible to users, but protecting the foundation that makes the system reliable.