Kevin Korte

The Flawed Bargain: Growth at the Expense of Privacy

Across the world, industrial policy and commercial lobbying have often positioned privacy and data protection as barriers to AI innovation. In China, state-led incentives supporting data-intensive applications have rapidly advanced AI, notably for surveillance and social control. These advancements include large-scale initiatives such as the social credit system and facial recognition deployments in regions such as Xinjiang, raising serious questions about human rights and personal liberty. Meanwhile, in the US, the push for AI growth is supported by a patchwork of sectoral privacy laws and ongoing efforts by major tech companies to moderate the impact of tough regulation, arguing that stricter data protection would impede innovation. We can see the results in numerous scandals involving smart speakers recording without consent, wrongful arrests due to algorithmic bias in facial recognition, and the covert application of personal images and texts for AI training, often without meaningful consent or transparency.

This willingness to trade privacy for perceived technological competitiveness does not create a sustainable advantage. Instead, it erodes public trust, infringes on individual rights, and entrenches a pattern in which ordinary people become subjects of relentless data extraction. The intersection of government and major tech giants exacerbates citizens’ loss of agency, shrinking the scope for meaningful accountability or redress.

The EU Enforcement Pause: A Warning for Digital Rights

The European Union has long stood as a global standard-bearer for digital rights, most notably through its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the recently adopted AI Act. However, the 2025 “Digital Omnibus” proposal to delay the enforcement of strict new AI and privacy rules until at least 2027 has sparked a vigorous debate. Under intense lobbying by both domestic and foreign tech stakeholders, the EU is rolling back the application of some of its most ambitious privacy protections, allowing “high-risk” AI systems greater leeway and postponing compliance deadlines.​

Critics warn that this move undermines the core values of transparency and accountability, opening the door to expanded surveillance, opaque profiling, and diminished consumer rights. The shift towards an “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” approach, where users must actively refuse data collection, marks a dangerous erosion of user control. For policymakers and advocates, the pause presents a cautionary tale: liberalizing digital rights in the name of promoting innovation can ultimately disempower the very societies these policies are meant to benefit.​

Africa’s Digital Transformation and the Struggle for Sovereignty

Nowhere is the tension between foreign influence and local agency more acute than in Africa, where leaders increasingly see digital transformation as an existential issue of sovereignty and decolonization. African leaders, technologists, and civil society voices vividly describe the risk of becoming “digital colonies.” States, big tech companies extract data en masse to control the economy and train AI models. Neither of which benefits the continent.​

Governments across Africa are responding by investing in homegrown infrastructure, open data initiatives, and collaborative regional regulatory frameworks. These efforts include the development and ratification of the African Union’s Malabo Convention on Cyber Security and Data Protection, as well as nation-led open data portals and AI tools built in local languages for local needs. Critically, the focus is not “digital protectionism,” but the right to govern, shape, and benefit from digital ecosystems on African terms.

Initiatives such as Lelapa AI, African data centers, and region-wide open-source platforms aim to empower local innovators and ensure that data remains a national resource. By recognizing data as a form of national capital, Africa is carving out a future in which digital innovation reinforces sovereignty and civic empowerment rather than perpetuating dependence.

Open Source as the Foundation for True Digital Sovereignty

The linchpin of genuine digital sovereignty is not merely physical data storage or restrictive regulatory barriers, but the embrace of open-source technologies and transparent governance models. Open source displaces the “black box” dominance of proprietary systems, providing the transparency, adaptability, and community-driven oversight essential for trustworthy digital infrastructure.

Open source ensures that governments, enterprises, and citizens can audit, modify, and control the fundamental systems that mediate daily life. It can help expand local skills, foster cost-efficiency, and prevent vendor lock-in. In the words of digital sovereignty, storing data in-country is just the start. What matters is code-level control, regulatory authority, and the capacity to adapt technology to support constitutional principles and genuine empowerment.

European and African approaches highlight the value of open source as a pathway to resilient, inclusive, and innovation-friendly digital ecosystems. Africa’s best practices of regional regulatory cooperation, local-language, mission-driven AI platforms, and cross-border collaborations demonstrate the multiplier effect of sovereignty grounded in openness, rather than secrecy or exclusion.

The Better Way Forward: Innovation, Trust, and Agency

The pursuit of AI growth cannot justify sacrificing foundational rights or agency. The US and Chinese models, marked by weak or selectively enforced data protections, have delivered visible harms. Surveillance is rampant, recurring cybersecurity breaches squander trust, and governments misuse biometric data. Recent developments in the EU and Africa signal a pivotal crossroads: Will societies continue to grant concessions to powerful interests, or will they seize the opportunity to build a human-centric, sovereign digital future?

Open source, robust privacy frameworks, and localized governance are not barriers to innovation. They are the conditions that enable sustainable, ethical, and equitable digital transformation. As digital technologies become inseparable from economic development and self-determination, agency over our digital future becomes ever more critical.

Strong digital sovereignty puts people first, ensures technology serves local needs, and builds resilient societies capable of thriving in the age of AI. That path will never run through the unchecked concessions to foreign powers or corporate interests. Instead, it lies in defending and extending privacy, championing open source, and cultivating digital ecosystems that are open, trustworthy, and ultimately self-determined.