Achieving digital sovereignty

Digital sovereignty starts with control over your identity. Identification mechanisms are the basis for finding attributes of a participant in a data space. Identity provides vital information to enable the sharing of data -- everyone needs to understand who they are sharing data with. It is the most important function within a data space. It allows the participant to exert control, to choose which data to share with whom, when and under what conditions. This ensures the participant has agency over its assets.

How should the identities for participants be provided? A federated system with a distributed design is a compromise between a centralized and a decentralized design as it enables a higher level of control without relying on a single central point of control. To enable a federated system, services are implemented where multiple participants share the responsibility for necessary functionality for all.

The data space governance authority (DSGA) is responsible for establishing the policies and rules of the data space. This role can be carried out by one entity, but also by multiple or even all participants. In a centralized data space, this could be the operating company. In a federated data space, this function would be performed by the federator(s) agreeing on the rules, while in a fully decentralized data space, various mechanisms are available to the participants. The mechanisms in a decentralized data space enable participants to agree on the set of policies and their enforcement, thus sharing responsibility for the data space governance authority function.

When evaluating different data space architectures and deployment models, the individual set of rules that serves as the basis is important, regardless of the required services mentioned above. One such rule set is the book of law for the membership. When a data space operates in a regulated industry, there are laws and regulations for data sharing. In this case, it makes sense to include specific regulations in the data space policy and rule set. This provides clarity when the data space crosses legal jurisdictions or industries.