Cross-border data flow is essential to contemporary international trade. However, transitioning from paper to digital in international trade has benefits and concerns. Concerns have led to an upsurge in data regulation as nations and regions impose restrictions on data flows and storage. This paper argues that, with increasing concerns about data sovereignty, the reconciliation of differing positions will be necessary to ensure that the benefits of digitization can be realized equally. At present, the objective of “data free flow with trust” is aspirational at best, with emerging trade barriers that unfairly threaten opportunities for small to medium enterprises and development within the Global South. This paper supports new knowledge and demonstrates that discriminatory regulation of data flow and disproportionately prioritizing national interests will be a trade barrier that impacts private entities and consumers in all nations. To avoid unintended externalities, cooperation is needed at a global level.

A proliferation of data-generating devices, sensors, and applications has led to unprecedented amounts of digital data. We live in an era of datafication, one in which life is increasingly quantified and transformed into intelligence for private or public benefit. When used responsibly, this offers new opportunities for public good. The potential of data is evident in the possibilities offered by open data and data collaboratives—both instances of how wider access to data can lead to positive and often dramatic social transformation. However, three key forms of asymmetry currently limit this potential, especially for already vulnerable and marginalized groups: data asymmetries, information asymmetries, and agency asymmetries. These asymmetries limit human potential, both in a practical and psychological sense, leading to feelings of disempowerment and eroding public trust in technology. Existing methods to limit asymmetries (such as open data or consent) as well as some alternatives under consideration (data ownership, collective ownership, personal information management systems) have limitations to adequately address the challenges at hand. A new principle and practice of digital self-determination (DSD) is therefore required. The study and practice of DSD remain in its infancy. The characteristics we have outlined here are only exploratory, and much work remains to be done so as to better understand what works and what does not. We suggest the need for a new research framework or agenda to explore DSD and how it can address the asymmetries, imbalances, and inequalities—both in data and society more generally—that are emerging as key public policy challenges of our era.

As humanitarian organizations become more active in the digital domain and reliant upon new technologies, they evolve from simple bystanders to full-fledged stakeholders in cyberspace, able to build on the advantages of new technologies but also vulnerable to adverse cyber operations that can impact their capacity to protect and assist people affected by armed conflict or other situations of violence. The recent hack of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement's Restoring Family Links network tools, potentially exposing the personal data of half a million vulnerable individuals to unauthorized access by unknown hackers, is a stark reminder that this is not just a theoretical risk but a very real one.1

The 2020 cyber operation affecting SolarWinds, a major US information technology company, demonstrated the chaos that a hack can cause by targeting digital supply chain components. What does the hack mean for the humanitarian cyberspace, and what can we learn from it? In this article, Massimo Marelli, Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross's Data Protection Office, draws out some possible lessons and considers the way forward by drawing on the notion of “digital sovereignty”.