
The Role of Digital Sovereignty in the Contemporary Era
As digital technologies become increasingly crucial in government, industry, and daily life, individuals are greatly concerned about their reliance on foreign technology providers.
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CIO Applications Europe | Tuesday, April 25, 2023

With digital technologies becoming more significant and playing a crucial role in every sector, the EU has established a number of initiatives to promote digital sovereignty.
FREMONT, CA: As digital technologies become increasingly crucial in government, industry, and daily life, individuals are greatly concerned about their reliance on foreign technology providers.
Europe is highly dependent on digital technologies from other countries. Expectations for how such reliance will develop in the coming decades are equally bleak as most people believe that other countries will be the leading tech powers in 50 years, not the European Union. Nonetheless, Europe has strengths in some technologies, it needs to accelerate the development, commercialisation, and adoption pace in others.
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Such examples include innovations like 5G, AI, cloud computing, and IoT becoming significant strategic assets for the EU economy. Yet, many indicators show that the EU also showcases some detrimental weaknesses in the global race to develop such new technologies. For instance, in the AI arena, the EU lags behind other countries in private investment, and the adoption of AI technology by companies and the general public is comparatively low.
Concerning privacy and data protection, concern has grown in the EU regarding how European citizens can regain digital data control in an online environment that is now largely dominated by non-EU tech companies. A recent example is a controversy concerning the development of a contact-tracing solution for controlling the coronavirus spread. In the cybersecurity field, dependence on other countries’ 5G infrastructure has been identified as a critical weakness for the EU.
The lack of control over data produced on the territory is another growing problem for the EU member states. The concern is that the tech giants’ control over data makes it difficult for others to compete in new and innovative markets. Meanwhile, large non-EU-based online platforms dominate entire sectors of the EU economy, depriving member states of their sovereignty in areas such as copyright, data protection, transportation, and e-commerce.
Excluding foreign actors from the European market entirely and rebuilding from the ground up is one solution for European and public sector companies to achieve complete independence from foreign services and infrastructures. However, this model is unrealistic.
It is important to highlight that digital sovereignty does not mean protectionism, but rather it refers to the ability of individuals and society to shape the digital transformation in a self-determined manner. Technological innovation also has to be in the service of humanity, and that commitment to a shared, free, open, and secure global internet is indeed a sovereign expression. Hence, the more realistic model is to acknowledge dependencies between foreign actors and European ones while encouraging the EU’s competencies and preserving its freedom of choice.
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