Speaking of Sovereignty: What About Individuals?
Image by Gemini
What is the real choice between China, the EU, the USA and Corporate Hegemony?
The headline that got me wondering
about this was the CBC story about Canada seeking “Sovereign AI Data Centres”. (Kyle Bakx · CBC News · Posted: May 14, 2026). What does it even mean, and where do average users fit in? It turns out there is good and bad news.
It should come as no surprise, first of all, that global corporations have been pursuing “sovereignty” for a long time. This is the idea that they are beholden to no country, nor accountable by their laws, nor owing anything in taxes, even if they reap obscene benefits from operating there. Sovereign; meaning “You’re not the boss of me”, all beginning with the legal standing as a person under the same laws they don’t wish to be accountable to.
We are hardly bewildered,
secondly, that should those corporations gather something valuable from the citizens of a country, their position would be that the citizens ought to have protected themselves better. For example, your online profile is of great value when it comes to sales and marketing, or even politics, and that really blurs the line of a conversation we should have had with them long before the ‘window’ on it closed. Because we don’t own those profiles, those second identities, and the corporate owners of them would argue that your country has no claim on them either.
There’s a bizarre realm in which your online profile has a right to vote and you do not; Or, your online profile has the power of attorney over your actual life.
And all of that is before this discussion takes a nose-dive into an Orwellian sensibility. There’s a bizarre realm in which your online profile has a right to vote and you do not; Or, your online profile has the power of attorney over your actual life. The thing is that those weird scenarios are not “The Slippery Slope.” That part was 20 years ago when Facebook was new. Today, in the here and now, is the part where we have the cold, sinking feeling in our stomach, and we wonder if China knew something we did not.
China has robust personal information protection laws but, of course, “protection” is defined by the state and the individual has no say or recourse. “Freedom” is about the individual’s responsibility to the state, according to the government. Depending on one’s point of view, that may not sound different than a corporate hegemony, except that the Chinese government appears to be invested in protecting its people from them.
The European Union’s “General Data Protection Act” by contrast is founded upon the legal authority regardless of national boundaries. Individuals can enforce laws about the ownership of their personal content no matter where their rights were contravened. That conception is, essentially, what global corporations will try to gain for themselves, and may have secured already in the US.
It’s murky legal territory because the US CLOUD Act, although it compels US companies to disclose private content of customers on demand, no matter where it is physically stored, is reliant upon the state to enforce it. That enforcement has proven to be spotty, happening state by state differently. It also requires reckoning with the laws of the countries where the data is physically stored. The EU may accommodate the needs of individual customers, but will China, or other interests? Probably not. The argument will be that the plaintiff is free to pursue the matter on their own.
The Plaintiff of the future, free to pursue matters on their own. Image by Gemini
Individuals will lean on new AI capabilities to some extent in such battles, but most will have to rely upon the prosocial actors among the big corporations. While some US based global corporations have currently achieved a significant level of sovereignty, they are not yet able to determine our future. Big companies may still have to reckon with states, nations, and perhaps even individuals.
That is the setting for this news article about Canada seeking sovereign AI data centres.
We can feel good suspecting that Canada will lean toward the EU model of border-less legal standing. While there is some attractiveness for the Chinese model, where the physical location of the data is key, it will come down to the language that defines the level of “protection” our government is imbued with. That is where this discussion takes us into dark waters.
The need to resist repetitive incursions by corporate entities may enforce an uncomfortably Chinese measure of control over the data centres.
The question must be asked whether this conflict will impose necessities that would normally be considered draconian. The need to resist repetitive incursions by corporate entities may enforce an uncomfortably Chinese measure of control over the data centres. Our government may end up protecting us from internal agents who also want control of citizens’ data.
Notwithstanding all of that, we also have to wonder how it will protect the ownership of the data of citizens who have already given up so much. I would argue that not all global corporations are villains. I don’t believe they all would overthrow the US government by twisting the laws to their own benefit. They do, after all, still need the people to buy stuff from them. Even so, it’s going to be a weird negotiation.
I see preferred corporate partners migrating to countries like Canada in order to secure stable business environments, while places like the US become ground-zero in an economic war zone. What exactly that looks like is tough to foresee, except for the stability/instability tension. People and companies migrating to Canada is an easy prediction to make in that scenario.
As to the place and/or role of the individual citizen in that future,
there appears to be a very steep learning curve in our future. The youth of today are going to have to come to terms with managing either a presence on a platform like “Google Canada”, which will be protected for them by formal contract with the Canadian government, or a new personal AI persona that behaves online as them- perhaps even in a legal capacity- that has status as a corporation and understands its place in a cut-throat global marketplace.
Those of us who came before them and gave up our rights to those profiles will have to negotiate with the owners for the use of them, and/or create new ones in the new Canadian marketplace. There’s no doubt that such a weird scenario will play out somewhere, but without a commanding presence in the construction of these new Sovereign AI Databases, the owners of those “old” or “market-nascent” profiles will be forced to defend valuations of them that are contingent upon bad-faith terms of service contracts. The investment in them will be threatened by forcing customers to migrate or recreate their online content.
My question at this point is, How many of you reading this have already begun thinking about your AI Corporation/Avatar?
The individual facing off against the global Marketplace. image by Gemini
