We create a piece of digital data when we send an email, tap an ad or use a credit card.
A kind of borderless currency that underpins the digital economy is the information that goes around the world at the speed of a click. Largely unregulated, the flow of bits and bytes helped fuel the rise of mega companies like Amazon and helped to shape global communications, commerce, entertainment and media.
The era of open borders for data is over.
France, Austria, South Africa and more than 50 other countries are trying to control the digital information produced by their citizens. Governments are setting rules and standards about how data can and cannot be moved around the globe due to security and privacy concerns. The goal is to gain digital sovereignty.
Consider that.
The Biden administration is trying to stop China from accessing American data by issuing an executive order.
Judges and policymakers in the European Union are pushing for tougher online privacy requirements and rules for artificial intelligence.
Lawmakers in India are trying to pass a law that would limit what data can leave the nation.
The number of laws, regulations and government policies that require digital information to be stored in a specific country more than doubled in the last two years, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
The internet has changed since it became popular in the 1990s, and the introduction of more national rules on information flows represents a fundamental shift in the democratic world.
Privacy, business operations, and how law enforcement and intelligence agencies investigate crimes are all repercussions. Companies can store records and information in a certain area with new services from Microsoft, Amazon and others. A new pact for sharing information across the Atlantic was agreed to in principle in March.
The amount of data has become so big over the last decade that it has created pressure to bring it under control, according to a professor of European law at Dublin City University.
Most people are unlikely to be affected by the new restrictions. Depending on where you live, some services and features may be lost. Meta, Facebook's parent company, recently said it would temporarily stop offering augmented reality filters in Texas and Illinois to avoid being sued under laws governing the use of biometric data.
The global economy is fractured by the debate over restricting data. The H1N1 swine flu has caused countries to rethink their reliance on foreign assembly lines, delaying deliveries of everything from refrigerators to F-150s. Worried that Asian computer chip producers might be vulnerable to Beijing's influence, American and European lawmakers are pushing to build more domestic factories for the semiconductors that power thousands of products.
Eduardo Ustaran is a partner at Hogan Lovells, a law firm that helps companies comply with new data rules.
The idea of digital sovereignty is that the digital exhaust created by a person, business or government should be stored inside the country where it originated, or at least handled in accordance with privacy and other standards set by a government. Some authorities want information to be controlled by a local company.
That is a change from today. Personal computers and company mainframes were where most files were initially stored. As internet speeds increased and telecommunications infrastructure advanced over the past two decades, cloud computing services allowed someone in Germany to store photos on a Google server in California, or a business in Italy to run a website from Seattle.
The leaking of scores of documents by the national security contractor EdwardSnowden led to a turning point. Europeans were concerned that they were vulnerable to U.S. snooping because of their reliance on American companies. There were lengthy legal fights over online privacy and trans-Atlantic negotiations to safeguard communications and other information transported to American firms.
The shaking is still happening.
While the United States supports a free, unregulated approach that lets data zip between democratic nations unimpeded, China and others have joined Russia in keeping data within reach to surveil citizens and suppress dissent. Europe has strict rules on data privacy and heavily regulated markets.
According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, draft rules require that information from payments systems and health services be stored inside the country. Personal data must be kept on a server in the country.
The General Data Protection Regulation took effect in the European Union in the year of 2018). The Data Act would apply new limits on what information could be made available to intelligence services and other authorities outside the bloc even if a court order was issued.
It is the same sense of the state that we can maintain knowledge about what we do in areas that are sensitive.
Two people familiar with the matter said the Biden administration drafted an executive order to give the government more power to block deals that put national security at risk. An administration official said the document was an initial draft sent to federal agencies for feedback.
Washington has tried to keep the data flowing. President Biden traveled to Europe in March to coordinate a response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The previous agreement was struck down by the top European court because it did not protect European citizens from being spied on by American law enforcement.
Gina Raimondo, the U.S. secretary of commerce, and Nadine Dorries, Britain's top digital minister, issued a joint statement in December.
The tech industry is concerned about the new rules. The online economy was fueled by the free flow of data according to groups representing Amazon, Apple, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta. Tech companies could not offer the same products and services around the world if they were required to store it all locally.
But countries are more strict. In France and Austria, customers of the internet measurement software, which is used by many websites to collect audience figures, were told this year not to use the program because it could expose the personal data of Europeans to American spies.
The French government scrapped a deal with Microsoft to handle health-related data after being criticized for awarding the contract to an American firm. They pledged to work with local firms.
Companies are adjusting. Microsoft said it was taking steps to make it easier for customers to keep data in certain areas. Amazon Web Services allows customers to control where their data is stored.
In France, Spain and Germany, customers can be sure that their data is overseen by a local company when they use their products from Google Cloud.
Ksenia Duxfield-Karyakina, who leads public policy operations in Europe, said they want to meet them where they are.
Liam Maxwell, director of government transformation at Amazon Web Services, said in a statement that the company would adapt to European regulations but that customers should be able to buy cloud computing services based on their needs.
Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who won lawsuits against Facebook over its data-sharing practices, said there are more disputes over digital information. The U.S.-E.U. data deal will be struck down again by the European Court of Justice.
We used to have a time when data wasn't regulated at all and people did whatever they wanted. That is a global issue.
The reporting was contributed by Ana Swanson.
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