Data Sovereignty is a part of Digital Sovereignty, and means having full and unrestricted control over the data one owns, and implies control over personally identifiable information (PII).
#Definition
Definitions are often restricted to merely being able to access and move data at will.
However, there are distinct concerns that also affect this ability, which bear keeping in mind:
- Data Transparency refers to the transparency that is provided in storing personal data and for fine-grained access control when sharing it.
- Data Compatibility & Interoperability considers that data may need to be provided in standardized formats when switching processing from one service provider to another, and may need to be transformed in order to make this switch.
- Data Security & Privacy concerns both data stored at rest, as well as when transmitted. In either case, it must be ensured that only the parties with access are privy to the information.
- Service Portability refers to the generalized concept of being able to switch service providers for data processing.
#Interpeer Project
It can be argued that if any of the above is not ensured, there is no full Data Sovereignty in place, either. If access is only granted in principle, but not in practice, there is no access after all.
As a result, we treat Data Sovereignty as the umbrella term that encompasses all of the above aspects.