Digital sovereignty? Oui oui!
TL;DR:Trump's threats against allies have finally forced Europe to confront the dangers of American tech dependency. From France ditching Zoom to the EU's sovereignty push—digital emergency stockpiles are being built, brick by brick. The question is whether Norway will keep up.
This is Kludder of the week!
It took a diplomatic crisis before we began to look differently at our American tech dependency.
Throughout the 2025 Norwegian parliamentary election, debates about digitalisation and technology were viewed as "niche". Parties like the Centre Party and Progress Party didn't even see the point in turning up. I should know, as I was a participant in many of those debates myself.
That's why the development we're witnessing is positive, with op-eds and debate pieces about control over our own technology and data taking place. The Norwegian Data Protection Authority marked Data Privacy Day (January 28th) with the theme "Digital Sovereignty and Privacy".
The Finnish company UpCloud is building data centres in Norway to ensure a "seamless Nordic digital backbone", and I'm reading an increasing amount of commentaries about how we can find our way back to owning our own data again.
Europe is watching US developments with concern. Last autumn, NIESR (The National Institute of Economic and Social Research) in England held a panel debate about Europe's economic dependency on the US. Former Bank of England director Sir Jon Cunliffe sees growing European fear that President Trump will press the "killswitch".
What we've seen now with Greenland and Canada, and in other areas, is that this administration seems equally inclined to use all the tools at its disposal against jurisdictions we traditionally think of as their allies. - Cunliffe.
Cunliffe says US allies have become sceptical to F-35 aircrafts, as the Americans can "switch them off" if they wanted to.
He believes the same applies to the duopoly the Americans have in Visa and MasterCard. The two companies control the digital payments market with an iron fist, and the potential deactivation of the card companies' services is, according to Cunliffe, one of the main reasons Europe is creating its own digital Euro. In 2022 this happened in Russia, following their invasion of Ukraine - which many see as proof that the Trump administration might use it against European countries in future as well.
2026 has had a surreal start. Fortunately, things seem to have calmed down around Greenland, but history shows it doesn't help trying to work with the current US president. He's inclined to change his mind overnight.
An American warning shot has been fired, and now the Europeans have been jolted awake.
Out with the American
In France, government departments and agencies are replacing American video services like Zoom and Teams in favour of French Visio. Over 200,000 civil servants will begin using Visio, according to French authorities.
The news comes right after the EU Parliament adopted a resolution on technological sovereignty. It aims to minimise the European Union's dependency on suppliers outside the union - for example, software, cloud solutions and services related to artificial intelligence. And perhaps it's about time, when eighty per cent of all the technology and infrastructure surrounding us is non-European.
Recent geopolitical tensions show that the issue of Europe’s digital sovereignty is of the utmost importance. With this report, we outline Parliament’s position and underline the necessity of acting now to reduce Europe’s technological dependence on foreign actors. If we do not, we run the risk of becoming a digital colony. - Michał Kobosko on the report delivered to the EU Parliament.
And those who think the EU is boring might want to think again. According to Renew Europe, the report was written by French MEP and Trump supporter Sarah Knafo. After submitting a draft, the report was expanded to cover additional areas such as 5G and 6G networks, as well as fibre internet and other digital infrastructure. Renew were surprised to see Knafo's name still on the "new" report. When Renew Europe caught wind of this, they proposed yet another amendment to the report; namely that Knafo's own party conducts propaganda on behalf of Russia and MAGA groups. Even with these changes, Knafo has chosen to put herself down as the report's author.
So there you have it - a political soap opera!
The road to digital sovereignty is long and windy. For some it may seem complicated. But it's now being built brick by brick. Norway must take this development seriously, and look towards both a joint Nordic sovereignty - and a European one.
That way we'll have a back-up plan. A digital emergency stockpile in case someone should be tempted by a big, red killswitch.
What shall we have for dinner today?
The Dutch food delivery service JustEat has rolled out a "delivery concierge" to all users in the United Kingdom. JustEat, which is comparable to Foodora, has rolled out an AI-powered voice assistant that users can speak with.
JustEat has thus embarked on giving us the answer to the question everyone asks themselver and their partners: What do we want for dinner today?
Jessica Newman
Fears of a new era of disinformation
It started with troll factories in Russia, and since then disinformation campaigns have followed technological development. Wired refers to a research article in Science that highlights the shift taking place: from hundreds of employees at troll factories, disinformation can now be effectively spread by just one person. Artificial intelligence is opening up a hornets' nest, where automated agents become machinery for hundreds of social media profiles with the aim of destabilising countries like Norway.
The article also highlights realistic deepfake videos and the ability AI agents have to adapt to new situations. In the research article, they go so far as to predict democracy's downfall unless action is taken.
If the researchers are right, we could face disinformation campaigns on a scale we've never seen before.
David Gilbert