What is data sovereignty and why does it matter?
Data sovereignty used to sound like a public-sector discussion. It now shows up in board meetings, procurement requirements, and risk registers across regulated industries. The reason is straightforward: dependency risk is no longer theoretical. When an organisation relies heavily on one ecosystem for identity, email, documents, and daily workflows, it also inherits the impact if that ecosystem becomes constrained—commercially, operationally, or legally.
Two recent developments show the direction of travel. The European Commission has been reported to trial a “sovereign” backup option for internal communications based on the open-source Matrix protocol. In the Netherlands, the Algemene Rekenkamer stated it wants to move away from Microsoft cloud services, while acknowledging such a move takes time.