Digital sovereignty: Switzerland's position in the digital world (panel)

The debate on sovereignty arose in the context of territorially defined nation states. But the data-based, digital world does without these geographical borders. What does this mean for Switzerland?

On 3 October 2023, the Swiss Data Alliance organized a panel discussion on digital sovereignty. Christian Laux, Vice President of the Swiss Data Alliance, discussed the topic with Stefan Pabst, Senior Project Manager at the think tank W.I.R.E. and lead author of the Innovate Switzerland position paper. The Swiss Data Alliance had already addressed the topic in the concept paper on data sovereignty published in 2022. Livia Walpen from the Federal Office of Communications moderated the discussion. The event was held in cooperation with digitalswitzerland.

The panel showed the complexity of the topic. The discussion revolved around three important topics:

• CONTROL
  Control over your own data is possible in principle, but requires a certain amount of know-how and can be expensive. This is more feasible for companies, but difficult to achieve for private individuals.

• RESPONSIBILITY
  The state comes into play where individuals and companies cannot enforce their control. If a state cannot enforce control, measures are needed at the international level.

• HALTUNG
  Switzerland should not just sail in the slipstream of the EU, but should focus on its own values and resources. At the same time, Switzerland is too small to go it alone.

The Swiss Data Alliance published a concept paper on the topic of data sovereignty in summer 2022.