On Tuesday, the Ministry for Digitalisation launched its new instant messaging app Luxchat4Gov, which will allow government employees to communicate with each other in complete security.

With this new instant messaging system, civil servants will be able to exchange text and voice messages as well as audio and video calls on their phones and computers. They will also be able to send files and share their geographical location.

In an initial phase, the new application has been made available to 25,000 government employees in the various ministries and administrations. For the moment, the 12,000 or so teachers in the Grand Duchy do not have access to the messaging system as the situation is said to be more complicated for them.

Unlike other messaging systems, Luxchat4Gov offers several advantages, particularly in terms of data protection, says Minister for Digitalisation Marc Hansen:

"First of all, the application is entirely operated in data centres located on Luxembourg territory, communications are end-to-end encrypted. The application is free of charge for users and also contains no advertising. The properties of the Luxchat4Gov application provide the public sector with a secure means of communication by protecting the data in circulation. With the app, the government guarantees that no one other than the user of the application and the people with whom they communicate can read the messages or have access to any potential data. In international discussions, which are also regularly held in Luxembourg, there is often talk of national digital sovereignty in terms of data management, and to guarantee that, this is a clear advantage, and that is why we wanted to do it as a state."

The development of the application cost between €‎650,000 and €‎700,000 euros. Besides Luxchat4Gov, an application for the general public called Luxchat will be launched in autumn. Details of this will be provided in the coming months.

RTL

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