A year like no other

Nobody will be surprised by this statement, but 2020 was a year like no other. For DNS Belgium, we can safely consider it to have been a good year. 

In the space of just a few months, the level of digitalisation of our society has progressed by several years. The Covid crisis is certainly responsible for this. Not only did we all have to work from home, but many companies also had to find a way to work online. We see the result of this digital leap in our figures. A large number of self-employed people and small companies needed to create websites to be able to continue working. 

Combating fraud on the Belgian Internet

During Covid, we continued taking our task of combating online abuse seriously. Working together with the necessary authorities to counter fraudulent behaviour on the Internet is one of our priorities. To this end, we automated and improved our systems. For example, we ensured that a portion of the potentially fraudulent registrations are automatically picked out. With this screening, we block domain names that seem suspicious to us. Although the digitalisation of our world has progressed a great deal, we have noticed that the figures for abuse have not risen accordingly. In total, we had to block 5,227 domain names for the year 2020, a decrease compared to 2019. There has also been great progress in checking the identity details of domain name holders. This is very important to make navigating the Belgian Internet safer. In this way, we quickly detect possible domain name fraud. Our aim here is to increase confidence in the digital economy.

Clear growth

The growth in registrations has not been as high as this year since 2013. To date, more than 1.7 million .be domain names are registered. During the year 2020, we have of course also seen a strong increase compared to 2019. For instance, at the end of 2020, there were over 275,000 new domain names, compared to just over 226,000 at the end of 2019, more than 21% growth year-on-year. 

A well-prepared team, is a productive team

Thanks to thorough internal preparation for all kinds of problem scenarios, the switch to homeworking wasn’t a problem for us. In fact, we fell back on an emergency scenario that everyone knew about beforehand. Despite the uncertain period, our colleagues continued to ensure, with exemplary dedication, that the Belgian Internet continued to run without a hitch. We thank them all for this! 

The productivity of our employees improved by approximately 11% compared to 2019. This is mainly due to higher efficiency while working from home, less time wasted on commuting and shorter online meetings compared to their physical counterparts. We continued to pay attention to the social connection between the different departments and colleagues. Joint activities were organised, such as a quiz, walking meetings, virtual coffee breaks that allowed everyone to catch up, and others. 

Corporate Social Responsibility

Homeworking has also significantly reduced our carbon footprint. According to our calculations, we would have emitted 123 tonnes of CO₂ last year. This figure was ultimately much lower than expected. The lower CO₂ emissions and our CSR programme earned us the title of "SDG Champion", awarded by VOKA. This title reinforces our will to be pioneers in the field of CSR. 

With DigitalForYouth.be, we reached new records. We collected no less than 14,746 second-hand laptops, which we refurbished. We then gave them a second life by distributing them to mainly Belgian schoolchildren during home schooling. This result came out of a weekend of brainstorming, where after a few days of work, we managed to find almost 2 million EUR in funding. The wave of solidarity left a strong impression on us. A clear sign that in difficult times people come together to help each other. We received the support of many companies and private citizens for this. 

In this way, in addition to supplying more than 300 schools with laptops, we also supported more than 60 different projects in 2020. An example is the 'Taalkot' project of Abrusco, which combines language and computer lessons for young asylum seekers. But also Ave Regina, which provides education for children with special mental needs.  

Collaboration, adjustments and challenges

In the year 2020, DNS Belgium was also elected to serve on the board of CENTR . We hope to be able to contribute here, and to continue exchanging our know-how and experience between the various registries in Europe. We are also sure that we will continue to learn from the others and by doing so improve our services. 

Of course, the Covid year was very hard for many, with a lot of challenges and difficulties. We have tried to provide as much care as possible to our staff to ease this unusual situation. Despite everything, DNS Belgium had a great year but it took a lot of work, adjustment, planning, ingenuity and willpower.