Why we need digital sovereignity

Laws and regulations are built on the premise of sovereignity, that governments control their own territory. Democracy is built in the premise of popular sovereignity, that governments rule on behalf of the people.

If our governments have no control, there’s no democracy. When tech giants defy laws and control our digital infrastructure and digital resources, we’ve lost control. We need to reclaim the digital world trough digital sovereignity.

Principles for digital sovereignty

Power and control need to be decentralized, no central actor outside democratic control should be able to arbitrarily shut down digital services.

The digital world should have the same democratic and judicial controls as the rest of society. There should be no question of whether local law takes precedence.

Open and transparent technology must be the basis for digital infrastructure.

Privacy is not only a human right, but also necessary to ensure that citizens can participate freely in democracies. Hence there can be no popular sovereignty in the digital world without privacy.

Data should be a public good, not a privatized asset. Datadriven services, such as AI, should be regulated from this perspective.

The road to digital sovereignty:

Private monopolies, such as these held by BigTech today must be replaced by digital infrastructure and digital resources under democratic control.

The current digital monopolies are upheld with technical and judical lock-in mechanisms. These need to eliminated. Interoperability is key to innovation, fair competition and individual freedom.

Competition law must apply to all, without the current digital exceptionalism. When necessary current companies must be forced to split up to avoid monopolistic market dominance.

Governments cannot rely on technologies that are under the control of some other jurisdiction, but must ensure that they are in control.

GDPR, and similar laws that protect privacy, has to be respected and enacted upon. The current mass surveillance from ad-tech giants is a threat to sovereignity and human rights.

International cooperation on both standards and open source solutions will foster sovereignity, innovation and democratic control.