What does Digital Sovereignty mean?
Digital Sovereignty is a concept that affects us all but, what does Digital Sovereignty mean?
Digital sovereignty is a key idea in the internet age: parties must have sovereignty over their own digital data. This can be applied on an individual basis or toward nations — the bottom line is that digital sovereignty involves consideration of how data and digital assets are treated.
Digital sovereignty is a big consideration in the privacy world.
One commonly cited example of a digital sovereignty principle in play is the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which establishes key requirements for data handling related to European individuals or businesses. The GDPR extends that data sovereignty principal around the world, and requires foreign dealers in European data to get in line.
On an individual level, digital sovereignty has to do with individuals owning their data and controlling its use. Through the encroachment of corporate digital activity, individual user information is too often harvested by corporations and sold for profit. This issue gets to the heart of why digital sovereignty is important.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that might be made of the information contained therein. 2020-1-DE02-KA226-VET-008261
