Conformism versus Sovereignty

Our digital lives rely on standardized tools. While this conformism simplifies usage, it exposes us to a loss of control. Let us reflect on this societal choice that shapes our collective future more than we think.

The Seduction of Digital Conformism

Almost all of our human activities now operate through digital tools and networks. The traces we leave—whether texts, images, sounds, or videos—and their exploitation, transit through computer systems. Take a city hall, for example. To function today, it needs a coherent and secure IT service, providing its staff with communication, data processing, and storage tools. It must guarantee the longevity of this information, which touches all aspects of civic life: economic, legal, and even artistic. These are not mere archives; it is the living world that is operated through data.

In this ecosystem, we are all in the same boat. If we own a mobile phone, we are either tied to Apple, with a mandatory account with them, or we use Android—meaning all other brands—and we then necessarily depend on a Google account. This pressure for uniformity extends to the most basic software. How many times have I seen people unable to open a file in the open .odt format, simply because their Microsoft Word software was long designed to read only its own proprietary format? It is therefore impossible to consider digital solutions in isolation. Conformism is imposed, not by deliberate choice, but by network effect, to simply be able to function with one another.

What I call “conformism” here is the passive adoption of the same tools by everyone. This must be distinguished from what technicians call “interoperability.” Interoperability is the ability to use different tools, but designed to communicate with each other, to exchange data in a simple, complete, and sustainable way. Interoperability is an ideal of diversity and freedom, but conformism is a much simpler path. At least in appearance. This reminds me of the distinction Hannah Arendt made between “behavior,” which is an automatic and predictable reaction, and “action,” which stems from conscious initiative. Conformism is about behavior, sovereignty is about action.

The Illusions of Simplicity and the Price of Dependence

Everyone adopting the same tool seems to solve all problems: compatibility is assured. But this ease places us in a situation of dependence on the operator behind the tool. Most often, these are American multinationals. Many local authorities, particularly in France, decide to delegate their entire IT management to an actor like Microsoft. In doing so, they accept that their data is no longer solely subject to French laws, but also to foreign legislation, which contradicts our legal frameworks. Fortunately, there is growing awareness: one in two organizations has already rejected an IT solution for sovereignty reasons, like the city of Lyon recently, which chose to manage all its IT with free software, leaving Microsoft. This represents more work.

The apparent advantages of delegating to Microsoft in particular are numerous. It seems to cost less, as the provider achieves immense economies of scale. Responsibility, particularly for data backup, is transferred. For users, everything is simpler, as they already know these hegemonic tools. We think we gain time, money, efficiency. But what we lose is our sovereignty: the ability to be masters of our own data, to know where it is located, to whom it belongs, and to frame it with our own law. This dependence exposes companies and administrations to concrete risks: cost increases, service disruptions, and exposure to extraterritorial laws like the American CLOUD Act.

This loss of control makes us vulnerable. Philosopher Hartmut Rosa speaks of “alienation” to describe our relationship with a technical world we no longer master. The recent attack on the Museum of Natural History in Paris illustrates this. Faced with a ransom demand, activity was paralyzed, documents disappeared, and the work to reconstruct everything is immense. If backups had been managed in a sovereign manner, for example encrypted and stored with a trusted provider without giving them the key, the attack would have occurred, but data reconstruction would have been possible. Lack of preparation is a major vulnerability: it seems that in 2025, only 30% of actors test the restoration of their backups. To be dependent is to be fragile.

Reclaiming Our Sovereignty, a Shared Responsibility

Taking back control of our data is real work, that’s obvious. It’s a responsibility we naturally bore before widespread computing; everyone managed their paper archives. The arrival of the “cloud,” where data is stored remotely, changed the game, making us entrust this task to the three giants: Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. The problem is not using remote services—data replication in multiple locations is a security guarantee—but locking ourselves into dependence. A city that manages its own systems remains entirely under French law and can perfectly use external services for encrypted backups, where the provider has no access to the content. In this case, the provider is used for security in case of failure or hacking; it’s not alienation.

This reconquest is not just a matter for technicians; it’s a societal choice, which is beginning to infuse minds, and which I support here. Some decision-makers seem to be becoming aware, with 70% of them reportedly believing that sovereignty will be an increasingly determining criterion in the future. We also see the driving role that the State and local authorities must play, by signing massive contracts with sovereign suppliers to guarantee their economic stability, which they do far too little. We can clearly see that action struggles to follow: it seems that half of all organizations conduct no monitoring of French or European sovereign solutions.

The comfort of conformism is very convenient. It allows us not to ask questions. But as philosopher John Dewey said, “a problem well stated is half solved.” If we avoid asking the right questions about our digital autonomy, we will inevitably suffer the consequences one day. I therefore invite everyone, at their level, to question these certainties, to explore alternatives, and to take back control of their data. Our ability to remain sovereign is at stake—that is, free to make our choices in the digital space that increasingly shapes our existence.