There is no shortage of reports highlighting Germany’s and Europe’s serious technological dependencies: social networks, cloud services, artificial intelligence – they are lagging in many areas and in danger of being left behind altogether. The lack of digital sovereignty did not arise suddenly, but in times of intensifying geopolitical conflicts, it now appears threatening. Europe is missing economic opportunities and has no influence on the design of the technologies. The technological dependencies also affect data sharing: citizens and companies in Europe are exposed to the risk of critical data being leaked. But what exactly are these dependencies and how do they affect everyday data sharing? What are the prospects for developing greater digital sovereignty?
ShareCast Epsiode 8 – Digital Sovereignty: Deciding how to share. 25 November 2025
Guest
Dr Martin Kraushaar is a lawyer and chief executive of the Architekten- und Stadtplanerkammer Hesse.
Further information
Rat für Informationsinfrastrukturen (2022): Ramin Yahyapour: IT-Riesen und Softwaremonopole: Das Ringen der Hochschulen um digitale Souveränität. Digitalgespräch Folge 55 vom 3. September 2024. https://zevedi.de/digitalgespraech-055-ramin-yahyapour/ (24.11.2025).
Architekturkooperative auf gutem Weg. In: DABregional 10/2024, S. 6. https://www.akh.de/deutsches-architektenblatt (24.11.2025).
Petra Gehring: Datensouveränität versus Digitale Souveränität: Wegweiser aus dem konzeptionellen Durcheinander. In: Steffen Augsberg & Petra Gehring (Hg.): Datensouveränität: Positionen zur Debatte. Frankfurt am Main, New York (Campus) 2022, S. 19-44. https://www.campus.de/e-books/wissenschaft/datensouveraenitaet-17434.html (24.11.2025).
Alexander Roßnagel: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit: Wie steht es um den Datenschutz? Digitalgespräch Folge 9 vom 5. Oktober 2021. https://zevedi.de/digitalgespraech-009-alexander-rossnagel/ (24.11.2025).
all ShareCast episodesEpisode 8: Digital Sovereignty: Deciding how to shareDigital sovereignty is one of the key concepts in the debate on digital policy – and is often used to highlight the lack of sovereignty in the digital sphere. This lack did not arise suddenly, but in times of intensifying geopolitical conflicts, these dependencies now appear threatening. What are these dependencies and how do they affect data sharing? And what are the prospects for developing greater digital sovereignty? That’s what episode 8 of ShareCast is all about. | listen now
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