Data (extra)territoriality: what sovereignty for Europe?
The expansion of the extraterritorial reach of laws governing digital data highlights the rise of new power dynamics surrounding control over global data flows. In this context, data localization is gradually emerging as a strategic tool employed by various states for purposes of political and ideological control, the protection of industrial interests and national security, or to support innovation and data protection.
In Europe, the preeminence of American cloud service providers is subject to extraterritorial legislations such as the CLOUD Act or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), highlighting the limits of a European strategy based solely on data localization. Given the extent of its dependencies in the digital and technological sectors (cloud computing, software, semiconductors, 5G) and the resulting vulnerabilities, the European Union (EU) would benefit from fully implementing a data sovereignty policy.
Several approaches could therefore be considered: ensuring the continuity of digital services, ensuring the resilience of critical infrastructure or implementing a policy to diversify Europe’s technological partnerships with actors that share the same values. Such a strategy would make it possible to combine the goals of economic competitiveness and data sovereignty, thereby fostering technological innovation, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
This study is available only in French : "(Extra)territorialité des données : quelle souveraineté pour l'Europe ?"
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Data (extra)territoriality: what sovereignty for Europe?
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