Digital Sovereignty: What It Is, What It Could Be

The term “digital sovereignty” has become ubiquitous. European officials invoke it in debates about cloud infrastructure, AI , semiconductors , and platform regulation. Governments throughout the global majority use it to argue for greater control over data and communications infrastructure and boost their economies. Companies market “ sovereign cloud ” products designed to reassure their customers that their information stays under local jurisdiction. But digital sovereignty could be something more: an opportunity for users around the world to build more resilient, open systems and the skills and infrastructure to maintain them. There is no singular definition of digital sovereignty, nor is there a single coherent position in the digital rights space. Despite its growing popularity, the term remains frustratingly vague. Policymakers, regulators, civil society groups, and others can mean very different things when they use the term. But to start simply with a broad definition, we can say that it means having the capacity to control one’s digital destiny—though the implications of that will obviously differ considerably whether you’re talking about an individual or a country. We can start by developing a shared understanding of what digital sovereignty actually means. We’ve also included a glossary of terms at the bottom of this post. In Europe and other places where digital sovereignty has become a topic of policy, discussions focus on reducing dependency: on foreign (and pa…