I'll be the first person to admit that when the word sovereign gets thrown around that I quickly think of an armed white American from a limited gene pool refusing to show their driving license to a police officer. But digital sovereignty in Europe isn't about tin foil hats or mistrust of the government. It's about not putting all of our digital resources including finance and government in the hands of a select few foreign companies. So I suppose before we continue on this adventure of open source and European alternatives to foreign technology it's important to define what we mean with digital sovereignty.

Sovereignty as a concept is the authority of a state or nation to govern itself without outside interference. In the context of digital sovereignty, it refers to a nation's or individual's ability to exercise control over its own digital activities, data, and infrastructure. Already, it is noticeable that digital sovereignty diverges from the central concept in that the individual becomes more important.

Why is the individual important in this case? Well, unlike in some countries like China where the government has strict approval over what can and can't be accessed via the internet (there are some limitations in Europe granted but it's pretty lax comparatively), we for the most part have freedom to choose how we live our digital lives. This has unfortunately led to us mostly choosing foreign companies and the vast majority of our digital lives being controlled by companies outside of our borders.

But individuals aren't the only ones at risk. European governments, institutions, and companies are all dependent on foreign technology companies. This makes digital sovereignty significantly more complex as it plays out on various levels.

And theoretically this isn't an issue. In fact one might argue that in a global economy it's perfectly normal to depend on another nation to handle certain aspects of your society. However, when this ultimately makes an entire continent dependent on external companies and countries, we no longer control the terms. Slowly we become a digital vassal state.

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#digitalsovereignty

A few days ago I informed my friends on Instagram and Facebook that I would be leaving the social media platforms for greener pastures. The constant harvesting of our data and low-quality, scroll-inducing brain junkfood has made remaining on these platforms untenable. So instead of mindlessly scrolling I thought I would try once again to contribute.

Since starting my role at SURF as a technical advisor I have been made acutely aware of the current digital domination of American tech companies (more commonly referred to as Big Tech). I still believe we can turn the tide and I will continue to work on this daily as part of my job, but I also want to contribute outside of that.

One of the most beautiful rights we have as humans is the right to choose, but without information we are sure to choose the wrong things. Through this blog I hope to share my adventures in digital sovereignty, both professional and personal, and show people that we can tip the scales if we make the right choices.

So if you are interested in joining me or feel like sharing something yourself, let me know. I hope to be making my first real post this week.

For the music nerds: The title of this blog and the first post are homages to my favourite band Bright Eyes

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#introduction #digitalsovereignty