Digital Jurisdiction and Data Sovereignty

This chapter reconfigures the boundaries between any idea of digital jurisdiction and the increasing quest for data sovereignty, focusing on the example of data localization requirements. Two apparently conflicting concepts emerge: digital jurisdiction, which potentially opens its remit beyond borders of any kind, and data sovereignty, which basically overlaps with the idea that physical borders overlap with digital borders. It examines the consequences of technology’s ability to replicate territory through digital borders and questions the risk that the overuse of territoriality can circumvent technological neutrality and undermine geo-political order.