What even is 'digital sovereignty'?

We've now got a page up for the Digital Sovereignty Unconference that FIELD STATION early next year. To accompany that, Tom and I have co-authored a new dispatch entitled Digital sovereignty is ours to shape which not only points to that page, but gives our view of what we mean by 'digital sovereignty':

Digital sovereignty is everywhere at the moment.

Governments are talking about national capability and strategic autonomy. Technology companies are selling 'sovereign clouds'. Communities are exploring different models of ownership, governance and infrastructure.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out in Digital Sovereignty: What It Is, What It Could Be, the term means different things to different people.

In a recent piece, Sovereignty isn't a place, Tom explored this distinction. He argued that sovereignty isn't defined by geography, a flag, or even who owns the technology. What matters is whether people have meaningful choices, and the knowledge, resources and rights to act on them.

It's an important distinction. A British technology company can still lock its customers in. A locally hosted AI model can still be impossible to inspect or challenge. And a government gaining more control over digital infrastructure doesn't automatically mean its citizens gain more control over their digital lives.

So we need to ask: sovereignty for whom, over what, and what for?

This is what the unconference is for. It's not up to governments and big companies to tell us what we mean; it's up to us to decide.

As an aside, and for a bit of fun, I also asked my Little Robot Friend to create a promotional video in the style of an Adam Curtis documentary. I did a bit of art direction after the first version and lent my voice, but it did the rest.

Impressive, eh?