Blog: Independence & Open Source on Digital Independence

Digital Sovereignty: Why Now

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A mid-sized German manufacturer receives a routine audit request from a state agency. The request arrives as a .odf file. The manufacturer’s IT department cannot open it properly — their Microsoft Office installation renders the tables incorrectly. They send back a .xlsx. The agency returns it: wrong format, please resubmit.

This is not a story about file formats. It is a story about a shift that has already begun — one that is turning digital sovereignty from a policy debate into an IT planning factor for organisations of all sizes.

Germany Mandates Open Formats

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Somewhere in a German federal ministry, a civil servant opens a spreadsheet. The file extension reads .xlsx. She has done this thousands of times — it is the default, the thing you never think about. But as of March 18, 2026, that default has an expiry date.

Germany’s IT-Planungsrat — the body where federal and state governments coordinate digital infrastructure — ruled that all German public institutions must switch to ODF for editable documents and PDF for final documents. Microsoft’s .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx are not on the list.

Technology as Geopolitical Leverage

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Friday, 27 February 2026. Just before five.

In a negotiation room at the Pentagon, a compromise was on the table. AI company Anthropic had drawn two red lines: no autonomous weapons, no mass surveillance. The Pentagon had yielded on autonomous weapons — the phrase “as appropriate”, the loophole that would have permitted deployment of Anthropic’s AI model Claude in weapons systems, was to be removed. Anthropic had offered in return to work with the NSA on data collected under judicial oversight pursuant to the FISA Act.

The World Map of Digital Dependency

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Five companies — Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta — form the digital foundation for most of the world. But not all of it. And the exceptions are as revealing as the rule.

In China, payments run on Alipay and WeChat Pay, not Visa. In India, UPI processes more transactions than Visa and Mastercard combined — on its own infrastructure. In Kenya, sending money requires not a bank account but a mobile phone with M-Pesa.

AI Safety Under Pressure

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In September 2023, Anthropic published a document that was hailed as a landmark in the AI industry: the Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP). Its core promise was unusually clear: if an AI model exceeded certain capability thresholds, development would be paused — until safety could be demonstrably guaranteed. OpenAI and Google DeepMind adopted similar frameworks shortly after.

Digital Risk Audit

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A French judge at the International Criminal Court tries to book a hotel room. He hands over his credit card. Declined. The second card. Declined. Both cards from European banks, both accounts funded — but payment processing runs through Visa and Mastercard. American networks. American rules.

Pentagon vs. Anthropic

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In February 2026, the US Department of Defense issues an ultimatum to AI company Anthropic. The demand: unrestricted access to Anthropic’s AI models – including applications that Anthropic’s own terms of service explicitly prohibit. The threat: a war-production law dating from 1950.

Seven months earlier, the same company had signed a $200 million contract with the same Department of Defense. Anthropic has made responsible AI development a founding principle – and was, at the same time, the first AI company cleared for deployment on classified military networks.

Copilot Bypasses DLP, Leaks Emails

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In January 2026, organisations using Microsoft 365 discovered that Copilot Chat was summarising emails marked as confidential — even when Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies were explicitly configured to prevent it. The bug was reported by customers on 21 January. Microsoft acknowledged it in early February in a notice tracked as CW1226324.

What happened

Microsoft 365 uses sensitivity labels (e.g. “Confidential”, “Highly Confidential”) and DLP policies via Microsoft Purview to control how data flows within an organisation. The expectation: if an email is labelled confidential, AI tools should not process it.

Grist Joins France's Suite Numérique

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

France’s sovereign productivity suite — the Suite Numérique, formerly known as LaSuite — has added another component: Grist, an open-source tool that combines the accessibility of a spreadsheet with the structure of a relational database and a no-code app builder.

Sovereignty Washing Explained

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Germany’s flagship sovereign technology platform, the Deutschland-Stack, is supposed to give the public sector a digital infrastructure it actually controls. The ambition is real: a national platform for federal, state, and municipal IT, built on open standards, reducing dependency on US hyperscalers.

But the Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA) warns that the current draft opens a dangerous loophole. The revised specification states that “solutions from European sovereign providers” may be used alongside open-source offerings. That sounds reasonable — until you consider what it means in practice.

AI Sovereignty: Who Owns the Models