digital sovereignty

Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options, says Dutch parliament

The motions were submitted and all passed yesterday during a discussion in the Netherlands’ House of Representatives on concerns about government data being shipped overseas. While varied, they all center on the theme of calling on the government to replace software and hardware made by US tech companies, acquire new contracts with Dutch companies who offer similar services, and generally safeguard the country’s digital sovereignty.

“With each IT service our government moves to American tech giants, we become dumber and weaker,” Dutch MP Barbara Kathmann, author of four of the motions, told The Register.

See https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/19/dutch_parliament_us_tech/

Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries

Published by Cambridge University Press as an open access publication, so it is freely downloadable from https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/digital-sovereignty-in-the-brics-countries/27E9FD7E4579C76C8D4BA52F7670B431.

It is an interesting analysis on this topic of Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, and is very relevant to those involved in digital governance, cybersecurity, or e-Government.

Really nothing we don’t know about, but interesting to see they also picked up on great intentions but lacklustre execution of planning.

Chapter 4 deals with South Africa, and what I found especially appealing were the parts about FOSS Activism and decentralised social networks on pages 30-31, 190, and 192-209.

Yes, many of those FOSS activists are still around and just as passionate as back in the day, except most have left government service by now. They still keep in contact though.

France says non to Office 365 and Google Workspace in school due to cloud data sovereignty, competition, and privacy rules

In August, Philippe Latombe, a member of the French National Assembly, advised Pap Ndiaye, the minister of national education, that the free version of Microsoft Office 365, while appealing, amounts to a form of illegal dumping. He asked the education minister what he intends to do, given the data sovereignty issues involved with storing personal data in an American cloud service.

German data protection authorities came to a similar conclusion in 2019 when they disallowed Microsoft Office 365 in classrooms in the state of Hessen.

See https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/22/france_no_windows_google/

#technology #EU #datasovereignty #privay #cloud

DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY OR DIGITAL COLONIALISM?

By Renata Ávila Pinto

Beyond tensions of privacy and security, we are witnessing today a real confrontation between control and freedom, not only of the individual, but of entire populations and regions, enhanced by technologies and massive collection and analysis of data – from predicting and influencing
behaviours, to the automation of public services and the ability to fully control and disrupt those services, even remotely. From gaining access to a global communications platform to losing the ability to protect the rights of those who are interconnected through those platforms. Are we witnessing a new form of digital colonialism?

This article focuses on regional, national, and community solutions to restore control and ownership on key information and communications infrastructures – the only possible first step to fix the current massive violation of privacy rights. It will later suggest some local measures to experiment with and advance alternatives at different levels of intervention and action, including proactive policy, capacity building, and new designs inspired in a set of values and principles different from those of the dominant actors in the market.

DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY OR DIGITAL COLONIALISM Download