[Opinion] Digital sovereignty without maps
Back in 2015, at the DVLA, we created a map of the automotive industry, applied some basic economic patterns and rolled it forward to 2025. From the map, we were expecting the onset of self driving cars with intelligent agents in the vehicle becoming more common, the dangers of digital subscription models applied to automobiles including route management and - well, a host of things. But that's not what this post is about.
What was important about the map, is we used it to think about the three basic forms of competition - conflict, co-operation and collaboration. We used the maps to identify where our digital borders needed to be, in this case around the simulation systems (i.e. training data) for the intelligent agents because that's where the values of the system are embedded. I've provided the map as an example. It was only a few hours of work to do this but then it's one industry rolled forward into the future.
This idea of using a map to determine where your borders are was copied directly from territorial maps and the ideas of sovereignty. Borders are were you conflict with others. Outside of this, the focus should be on co-operation and collaboration.
So, what is the point of this post? Well, I'm sick to death of the ChatPPT folk (management consultants) talking Digital Sovereignty without any maps of the technological or economic landscape. Digital Sovereignty is not "we own our data". It certainly makes a good story but the concept of "we own our data" is about as useless as Generals going "we own our trees". What trees? All the trees? Where?
Fortunately, in the armed forces people understand the importance of awareness and use the landscape to describe sovereignty. Maps are an effective representation of a landscape. I can show you which trees, on the map. It's a pity that a decade later from those DVLA maps that this lesson still hasn't been learned in the digital world.
There is no sovereignty without borders, there are no borders without landscapes, there are no better representations of this than maps. That applies to both the physical and the digital world. Any discussion about sovereignty without maps amounts to little more than jackanory and is a mockery of good governance.
There is a longer medium post which starts with reason, wanders through AI and then digital sovereignty before ending with an examination of China.
Originally published on LinkedIn.