Introduction

This chapter investigates how the conceptualization of territory and sovereignty as the related legal constructions are affected by data flows, and whether and how the results are relevant for digital law. It gives account of the book’s title, linking the epistemics of legal constructions to information technologies and their primary source, which is data. It defines data fragmentation and argues for its potential to reconfigure new pathways for sovereignty then shaping the law. It ultimately includes a plan of the book that is divided into an introduction plus six chapters revolving around the architecture of data spatiality, the theoretical debate between Kelsen and Schmitt on territoriality, the juridification of an on-line space, data extraterritoriality, the concept of data sovereignty and its technical requirements, the alternative to territoriality in data regulation.