Imagine a world where your credit card no longer works, your Amazon account is closed, and using US tech companies is no longer an option. It’s nearly impossible to shop online, make wire transfers to a family member overseas, or rely on anything involving the United States, including the US dollar.
For one Canadian woman, this is now her reality.
Last year, the Trump administration added Kimberly Prost, a judge at the International Criminal Court the list of financial sanctionsafter serving on an appeals panel that in 2020 unanimously authorized the ICC prosecutor to investigate alleged war crimes in Afghanistan since 2003, including by US personnel. The United States is not a member of the ICC and does not recognize its authority. Several other judges and prosecutors of the ICC have also been sanctioned by the Trump administration.
Prost, whose name now shares the same list with some of the world’s most dangerous people, from terrorists to North Korean hackers and Iranian spies, described the impact of the sanctions on her life as “paralyzing”. interview by The Irish Times.
This high-profile case provides a glimpse into the disruption that being cut off from the US can have on a person’s daily life. Lawmakers and government leaders across Europe are increasingly aware of the looming threat they face at home and their over-reliance on American technology.
Trump’s diplomatic escalations and subversion of international norms, incl the arrest of a foreign leader and threatening to invade a NATO and European allyhave caused some EU countries to consider moving away from US technology and regaining their digital dominance. This shift in thinking comes as the Trump administration grows increasingly unpredictable and vindictive.
In Belgium, the country’s cybersecurity chief Miguel De Bruycker admitted recent interview that Europe has “lost the Internet” to the United States, which has hoarded much of the world’s technological and financial systems. De Bruycker said it was “currently impossible” to fully store data in Europe as a result of US dominance of digital infrastructure and urged the European Union to boost its technology across the bloc.
The European Parliament voted on January 22 to approve a report that directs the European Commission to identify areas in which the EU can reduce its dependence on foreign providers. MEPs said the European Union and its 27 member states rely on countries outside the EU for more than 80% of their digital products, services and infrastructure. The vote was not binding, but it comes at a time when the European Commission moves to bring more of its technologies and dependencies on its own turf.
The French government said Tuesday it will replace Zoom and Microsoft Teams with its own homegrown Visio video conferencing softwareaccording to French minister of public services and state reforms David Amiel.
Concerns about digital sovereignty are not new and date back decades to at least 2001, when the US introduced the Patriot Act after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Patriot Act allowed US intelligence agencies to surveil the world in ways never before allowed, including spying on the civilian communications of its closest allies in Europe, despite the bloc’s strict data protection and privacy rules.
Microsoft granted years later in 2011 that as an American technology company it could be forced to hand over data of Europeans in response to a secret order from the US government; Until 2013, when much of this surveillance was revealed in practice through classified documents leaked by then-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
At the level of individual consumers, there has also been a concerted push to urge users away from US tech providers and technologies, with tech workers calling on their executives to speak out against the growing brutality of US federal immigration agents.
Freelance journalist Paris Marx has a guide to withdrawal from the US technology serviceswhile several other websites, such as switch-to.eu and European Alternativesencourage users to use alternatives to Big Tech products and services, such as open source tools.
