Act V — Staying in control

Many people think we are overly dependent on big tech, and we should be more autonomous and sovereign. Fewer can say what exactly is the risk here. Digital autonomy and sovereignty form a wicked problem: its parts are intertwined with many other issues and conflicting interests, so there is no clean solution. Before reaching for solutions, it pays to be precise about the risk. At risk is our power to decide which data flows where, a power exercised through control over digital infrastructures such as cloud and social media. The risk, then, is what happens when that power sits with someone else. ...

Autarky Implicit in many discussions on digital autonomy is the quest for ‘autarky’, being completely independent from other actors, for example those actors whose objectives may be in conflict with ours. This is driving the call for national cloud providers, local manufacturing, and more open source, to name just a few. Autarky, however, is just one tool for establishing autonomy, and a very difficult one as well. Economic history shows that no well-developed country is in a state of autarky. For example, in World War II, England was heavily dependent on transatlantic shipping convoys for its supplies, including food. This should be familiar to anybody who has studied the role of Alan Turing and others at Bletchley Park in deciphering the German military code (Enigma) that threatened those convoys. ...

Suppose you are a government, a regulator, or a concerned cloud consumer. What can you actually do to mitigate sovereignty risks and achieve adequate autonomy? The honest starting point is that full digital autonomy, autarky, is not achievable, and not worth pursuing. Read here for more on that. No well-developed country is fully independent of others. The goal is not independence, but resilience: reducing the negative effects of dependence, and preserving options. ...

Imagine that you are part of the government of an average nation, and you have just realized that IT has become a substantial factor in your operation. Or you have a similar position in a manufacturing industry, or in the financial sector. As IT increased in volume, you have tried to keep its costs down, it was just a facility. Outsourcing to more experienced partners was an option, and so was the use of cloud computing, for example for your Office applications. ...