Does your organisation have data ownership?
Pick what fits best:
No mail. Answers are not stored.
Why now
Time to chart the course.
A changing world makes data ownership more relevant than ever.
67%
At least 67% of Dutch (semi-)government and vital organisations are effectively tied to at least one US cloud service.
Regulatory pressure
EU rules influence architecture choices on portability, oversight, and third-party risk.
Geopolitical uncertainty
Access can be denied due to geopolitics.
Rising costs
Lock-in compounds: cloud and migration costs keep rising.
Ethical considerations
Who benefits from data, who bears risk, and how do decisions stay explainable and fair?
Ownership
What is ownership (of data)?
Ownership = the right to possess, use, and dispose of something.
Use
Who may process data, for which purposes, and under what terms?
Possess
Where does your data live, who can access it and can you use it elsewhere?
Dispose
Can you end, delete, revoke, and prove it?
These three verbs apply not only to data, but also to software and hardware:
- — Hardware: where it runs, who has remote access, can you decommission or replace?
- — Software: who controls configuration and updates, can you replace, migrate or stop?
Sovereignty
What is data sovereignty?
Data sovereignty means meaningful ownership over data and the infrastructure that makes data usable.
The sovereignty pillars
Agents
Who should be sovereign?
- Individuals
- Organizations
- Governments
- Coalitions
Contexts
Where does it matter?
- Legislation
- IT architecture
- Research
- Public services
Values
What does it protect?
- Control and power
- Privacy
- Deliberation and inclusion
Content
How do you make it concrete?
- Descriptions: what does it look like?
- Challenges: what stands in the way?
- Strategies: how do you act on it?
The sovereignty layers
Rights, roles, contracts, jurisdiction.
Check
Where does your ownership stand?
We pre-filled all answers based on your first choice.
| Yes | No | Unknown | |
|---|---|---|---|
No mail. Answers are not stored. | |||
| 01 Know | |||
| Do you know where your data is stored? Location is the foundation of sovereignty. | |||
| Can you export your data without help from your vendor? Portability prevents vendor lock-in. | |||
| 02 Control | |||
| Do you control who accesses your data — and is that enforced? Access without enforcement is just intent. | |||
| Do you hold the encryption keys — not your vendor? Whoever holds the key decides. | |||
| Can you prove deleted data is actually gone? Provable deletion is the ultimate test. | |||
| 03 Govern | |||
| Can you act independently during an incident? Sovereignty matters most in a crisis. | |||
| Are your contractual exit terms clear and executable? Dependency shows when you try to leave. | |||
| Is data sovereignty a criterion in architecture and procurement decisions? Without embedding it stays accidental. | |||
No mail. Answers are not stored.
Your result
This is not a certification or compliance verdict. It is a starting point for conversation.
Would you like to talk with us about your data sovereignty level?
Talk to the teamOur approach
Visualize. Strategize. Execute.
In three phases, we make dependencies visible, decisions explicit, and execution provable.
01 — Visualize
We draw the map
What we do
- Interviews with stakeholders and process owners.
- Analysis of your data and platform landscape.
- Inventory of ownership across hardware, software, and data.
What you get
- An ecosystem blueprint.
- Red / amber / green indicators with explanation.
- Recommendations per indicator.
- A sovereignty-focused SWOT.
The team
Together we enable data sovereignty.
We combine years of experience in data platforms, responsible data stewardship, software architecture, and strategic product thinking.
Ready to reclaim ownership of your data?
Get in touch
We're here to help. Ask us a question or schedule a conversation.