Digital sovereignty

Key debates of digital sovereignty and what can be done in cities.

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Insights

1/ Digital sovereignty is defined by the independence of, or control over, digital infrastructures, technologies and contents. The concept of digital sovereignty builds on sovereignty in political science, which is very much about the state’s political powers and legal authority. Digital sovereignty can bolster or detriment democracy, human rights, innovation and economic prosperity. Current digital sovereignty debates often frame digital sovereignty in terms of its impact on individual and collective autonomy, self-determination and empowerment. Considering its multi-scalar spheres, I conceptualise digital sovereignty as:

· National digital sovereignty – a nation’s digital sovereignty in relation to other countries

· Domestic digital sovereignty – the extent of digital sovereignty in the internal affairs of a country including the activities and operations of government institutions, businesses and legal entities

· Human digital sovereignty – the digital sovereignty of individual people or groups, the latter not necessarily sharing a territorial domestic or national jurisdiction

2/ There are three main aspects of digital sovereignty: software, data and servers. Ways digital sovereignty can be pursued within these include:

· Developing, supporting or using open source software

· Using the products of local or a diverse range of software providers for digital products and services, not being locked-in, or all-in with a particular technology supplier

· Funding local startups and cultivating startup ecosystems that develop technologies enabling the decentralisation of digital infrastructure and diversification of breakthrough innovation sources

· Where data is collected by companies or government bodies, upholding data governance rights and responsibilities agreed with stakeholders

· Diversifying, and where possible localising tech infrastructure such as 5G or servers

3/ A vast majority of the world’s software, data and servers are controlled by US and Chinese corporations. Companies in the United States have been the predominant supplier of software and servers, and consequently the recipient of the most of the world’s data up until this point leading to large digital trade imbalances where the US has a surplus. China has positioned itself better than the rest of the world in this sense, having been pursuing localisation of technological innovation for some time with size on its side and ambitious program and funding to become the global leader. Its government has required international companies doing business within its borders to set up local data centres and offices as well as providing limitations on the flow of data and intellectual property. Russia has more recently introduced a similar approach.

4/ Geopolitical conflict is arising as a result of territorial control of data, underscoring the importance of national digital strategies that address digital sovereignty. It is a difficult challenge ahead for the rest of the world to decentralise digital infrastructure, localise data and tech solutions, and form international coalitions. Politics and social ties around the world are fracturing, yet digitization is increasing the connectedness and complexity of systems. Implementing data localization isn’t easy either, as data centers are energy intensive and emerging economies struggle.

Countries are recognising digital sovereignty as part of national strategy and the EU, especially its larger member states, now see digital sovereignty as an essential part of economic strategy and political values. They have established an array of Europe wide and national programs to develop infrastructure and innovation needed to enable digital sovereignty for member states and EU citizens, such as the Next Generation Internet program, enforcing tougher regulation of the world’s largest tech platforms (e.g. GDPR) and increasing funding for startups. In light of the Francesca Bria, President of the Italian National Innovation Fund (whose work at Barcelona City Council is included in point 8 below) argues that a more powerful European wide mechanism is needed to effectively pursue digital sovereignty in Europe:

“Europe should leverage its investment capacity, federate existing tools and create a European Fund for Digital Sovereignty. The EU should use all public instruments at its disposal — a mix of investment in research and pilots, setting standards and regulations, subsidising venture capital (for instance by creating public VC Funds as France and Italy are now doing), becoming a customer of specific interest tech firms, or engaging in direct investment. These funds could for example be used to invest in public interest digital technologies that are decentralised, privacy-enhancing and rights preserving and where data is a public good.”

However, if pursued by authoritarian regimes, domestic policies for digital sovereignty can detriment individual freedoms and autonomy. However, if pursued by authoritarian regimes, domestic policies for digital sovereignty can detriment individual freedoms and autonomy. Governments including China, India and Russia are asserting greater controlover access citizens have to the internet, foreign web platforms and seeking data localisation in the name of digital sovereignty. When the concept of technological sovereignty is deployed by a state with strong isolationist and authoritarian tendencies it can increase the surveillance and control of the population. Data can be used as resource of government to enforce power; data localization could enable the abuse of individuals, dissidents and minority communities that was not possible when data was in foreign hands.

5/ Digital sovereignty efforts should establish greater balance, accountability and human centric values in the design, proliferation and management of technology products, services and infrastructures, which can only arise through parallel activities in broader economic and social policy and political systems. Considering the concept of sovereignty applied in the real world, no state is ever truly sovereign. Regardless of the regime, power and laws are shaped by the interplay between an array of actors and influences including government and non-government institutions, political parties, interest groups and lobbies, the electorate, trading partners and international politics. Whether digital sovereignty in a given context is in the interest of human rights, and the values it prioritises, reflects these dynamics.

6/ Individuals seeking to take control of their own digital sovereignty is a growing international trend. The datafication of one’s identity and everyday life activities, and control over that data, has become a commodity sought by those that are the source of data, as well as the corporations and governments harvesting it. Increasing public awareness of how data collected is being used to influence human behaviour is driving demand for alternatives to mainstream digital products, platforms and infrastructure. An increasing movement is arguing that privacy should be considered a human right.

As a result of this growing market, a new generation of startups are making security, privacy, and anonymity the core of their value proposition for products that serve both businesses and consumers. For example, Librem 5 by Purism is a smartphone built to protect user data, and a recommendation engine that doesn’t collect user data by Canopy. Blockchain solutions to enable self-sovereign identity management for individuals and businesses include Datawallet, UPort and Sovrin.

I believe debates and efforts towards individual digital sovereignty in democratic nations do not place enough emphasis on rights and responsibilities determined by data governance models, and that the pursuit of absolute data ownership and individual privacy is no longer possible.

For societies to continue to function and benefit from the technological advancements underway we need to find ways to better oversee and optimise data and networked based digital infrastructure for common good. The problem is not necessarily data collection, but how the data is being managed and used, which can be remedied by adequate data governance. In free societies, individual digital sovereignty might enable a sense of control for people with the tech literacy, offline social networks and economic freedom to ‘opt out’ from certain platforms and providers, however the same actions for those without such capital (which is the vast majority of people) would lead to disempowerment or distress in everyday life. The Brookings public policy think tank contends that:

The better way to strengthen privacy is to ensure that individual privacy interests are respected as personal information flows to desirable uses, not to reduce personal data to a commodity.

Clara Neppel, Senior Director of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) European Office argues for new frameworks and ethical design standards for the governance of personal data, especially in terms of the data associated with our digital profiles created from data collection that we are unaware. The new frameworks could be based on the intersection of top-down and bottom-up approaches, including regulation on the one hand, and civil society actors on the other. Cities, as effective scales to work within civil society engagement are apt to play an important role in forging these new pathways.

7/ There is much potential in the activities of democratically elected city and local authorities to pursue and support digital sovereignty in line with public good as part of their civic responsibilities and visions. This level of governance provides a scale that is influential enough to create momentum that could redefine the global technology industry landscape through both their internal operations and public facing policy mechanisms. A starting point would be the use of free and open source software in public administrations. In Germany for example 96% of government computers use Microsoft proprietary software and services, which the government has acknowledged as an issue to be addressed as part of its digital sovereignty goals. Action taken so far include Hamburg and Munich city governments recently deciding to move towards open source software use for civil service.

Similarly, to decentralise data collection occurring with search engines, French government departments have started using only a French and German built search system called Quant.

Public search engines, based on commonly developed and maintained open source software, along with other localised or decentralised digital infrastructures will be as beneficial to the quality of life and wellbeing of citizens and local economies in the 21st century city as much as the public provision of roads, transit and green spaces.

8/ For an exemplar of digital sovereignty being driven by a city authority, look to Barcelona, but be mindful of the socio-cultural and political context that has enabled this progress. Key underlying conditions of Barcelona’s global leadership in the pursuit of digital sovereignty include:

· The Catalan independence movement which is seeking independence of Catalonia from Spain is a significant aspect of the conditions that have enabled Barcelona to be a world leader in human centric digital sovereignty. Barcelona’s digital sovereignty program aligns with the goal of sovereignty for the Catalan state as well as the empowerment of its citizens to become self-sovereign individuals and engage in political and civic affairs. A majority of Catalan voter’s support of independence, and I have witnessed huge public demonstrations in Barcelona for this plight when visiting. This broad social and political movement provides a highly conducive basis, and urgency, for Barcelona’s public administration to pursue digital sovereignty for the city and its citizens as well as open source ecosystem building so that other authorities (there are over 500 municipalities in Catalonia) can follow suit.

· Barcelona is a leading European tech startup investment hub, together with London, Paris, Berlin and Stockholm, with momentum being complemented by EU wide efforts and the city’s investment and piloting programs for new technologies and open source solutions.

· Barcelona has critical mass in population, being the second largest city in Spain, and has a healthier, more diverse economy relative to the rest of Spain. These provide a larger tax base, discretionary spending, industry development capabilities and talent pool.

· It is certainly not free of the wicked problems of cities such as housing affordability, balancing growth with environmental sustainability, and volatile global conditions. However, Barcelona is considered a model of urban planning best practice, with its historical layout and density in addition to modern regeneration initiatives providing high quality of life.

In short, Barcelona has social, political, economic and spatial ingredients that are conducive to the public administration taking on innovative and experimental policy and strategy interventions for digital sovereignty.

That said, there are several policy documents and initiatives of Barcelona that are great benchmarks for cities seeking to pursue digital sovereignty. Key ones include:

· Barcelona Digital City plan which calls for the establishment of agile methods for tech based projects, re-establishing control over data and information generated by digital technologies in the city, and pursuing public digital infrastructures based on free and open source software, open standards and privacy-enhancing and rights-preserving technologies.

· Based on the Digital Plan, the Ethical Digital Standards: A Policy ToolKit was created as an open source policy toolkit for cities to develop digital policies that put citizens at the centre and make governments more open, transparent, and collaborative. It provides a framework for technological sovereignty policy and guidelines for implementation.

City of Barcelona’s Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer, Francesca Bria was key figure in the development of the city’s digital sovereignty policies and open resources. Among an array of projects, she was also a leading figure in the EU backed decode project. Through a number of pilots in European cities it aimed to decipher alternative infrastructures for a data-centric digital economy where data that is generated and gathered by citizens, the Internet of Things (IoT), and sensor networks is available for wider communal use with appropriate privacy protections.

9/ Meanwhile, the Digital City Alliance Berlin network exemplifies a grassroots initiative pursuing digital sovereignty goals for the city. The Alliance was established by a range of stakeholder groups, particularly academic and independent research groups with expertise in digitisation, and citizens to ensure people, nature and the common good are central to the strategy’s development, rather than simply repeating global smart city rhetoric. It is now in continued dialogue with the public administration to inform the emerging digital strategy. This type of initiative emerging from outside of Berlin’s government authorities reflects its longstanding, vibrant activist scene, being a magnet for creatives and those seeking alternate lifestyles, alongside a concentration of universities and research institutes.

10/ Also worth noting in this space is the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, established by Barcelona, New York City and Amsterdam city governments and now with over 45 signatory cities endorsing its principles. The principles are oriented towards the individual empowerment and agency being inherent to the digitisation of city governance, which is one element needed for digital sovereignty. However, when I looked though the activities of the cities that have joined the alliance there is little to no mention of open source software, data localisation and data governance models for the common good. The Coalition is still in its early days, and hopefully as time passes the cities will become more ambitious in their digital strategy programs. Most beneficially, they could optimise the network by joining resources to develop common open source projects and pilots, and placing more emphasis on the development of digital infrastructures and supporting innovation ecosystems that could develop desirable and scalable alternatives to the offerings of the few dominant players in today’s tech landscape.

Interview

Elizabeth Calderón Lüning, Associate Researcher, Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, co-initiator of the Digital City Alliance Berlin co-founder of Common Grounds.

tg: What were some key ingredients (people, organisations, events) that enabled the creation of the Digital City Alliance in Berlin?

ECL: We had been a small group of people that had not originally met because of technology but around our work with city policy issues and it was a mix of people: from research, activists and a parliamentarian. So we had a common concern in public interest, the trust with each other due to past experience, but also some kind of institutional backing.

The institutional backing became relevant when we started inviting people for the first event in June 2019. Through our diverse backgrounds, we attracted a lot of people from different backgrounds. The first event was key. We were probably around 50-60 people from civil society, city activists, academia, tech practitioners from the open source community, social entrepreneurship advocates and intermediary institutions such as “Verbraucherzentrale” (i.e. consumer protection center). We held the first event in the parliament, and it was good to open up this democratic space for the public.

The official statement paper that was made public in December 2019 and was signed by 30 organizations, became the paper that shows us who we are. Also an important moment.

tg: Is there anything you would recommend to others seeking to establish something similar in their own city?

ECL: I think the key is to build alliances. When we speak of digital cities, we are talking about so many aspects of cities and we should definitely not stop at just engaging technologists.

So it is about building alliances to others working on civil liberties, housing rights, environmental justice, alternative economies etc.

tg: What could help enable the cultural shift needed in government organisations to be more proactive in actions to ensure digital sovereignty for citizens and as an element of city governance?

ECL: First of all, it is to see and understand the moment in time that we are in. To really conceive what the digital transformations will do is hard for all of us. It is an abstract issue for most people, also for politicians and people working in public administrations.

I think we should revisit basic human rights and make them an issue when we discuss digital technologies. We must get government to understand their role.

Then we also need digital policy making to be a key component in government on the one side but also in constant contact and realignment with other policy objectives. So strong digital policy to protect and serve, and embedded in city policy to ensure coherence.

tg: Last week you hosted a workshop as part of the Data Cities conference whereby participants created a Citizen Manifesto on Data Cities. What key themes, goals or activities were identified?

We started from a different point. While technology is often very problem oriented, we wanted to start our conversation about desires. What city do we desire, what type of city do we need to be able to handle the next 25, 50, 100 years. Our conversation was strongly based on values, including participation, self-organization, trust, anonymity, etc.

Then we went from a manifesto to the manifestation of these changes and proposed small projects, we could start right now, to change norm and value systems to get to that city of desires.

tg: Who are the people or organisations that you would recommend for inspiration, research or good practice concerning digital sovereignty for cities?

ECL: Dyne.org, Decode, Technological Manifesto of Barcelona, Cities Coalition for Digital Rights and Algorithm Watch

1/ WATCH The Digital Humanism initiative of Technical University Vienna just hosted a panel debate focused on digital sovereignty streamed live a couple days ago. The debate “Digital Sovereignty – Navigating Between Scylla and Charybdis” will be posted in full on the Digital Humanism YouTube channel (it’s not up yet).

2/ READ We have been harmonised. Life in China’s Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter (2019). This book is based on Strittmatter’s extensive time living in China working as a journalist. It details a critical perspective of the extent of surveillance in Chinese society whilst paying attention to the long-range political project that has unfolded. Overall, it points to an argument that through embracing digital technology as a means of control the Chinese state has moved from an authoritarian to a totalitarian regime.

3/ READ The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Shoshana Zuboff (2019). The is a key text for anyone researching in digital society and critical theory fields. It argues that a new form of capitalism has emerged using emergent digital technologies. According to Zuboff, surveillance capitalism translates human experiences into behavioural data which is made into prediction products that anticipate what one will do. These prediction products have become valuable commodities traded by companies, helping the buyers influence human behaviour whilst creating significant wealth for the sellers. Another (less intensive, but insightful) entry point to Zubhoff’s work is a talk she gave in Berlin late 2019, Surveillance capitalism and democracy, which you can watch here.