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Imagine a world where your credit card no longer works, your Amazon account is closed, and using US technology companies is no longer an option. It is impossible to shop online, wire money to a relative abroad, or trust anything involving the United States, including the US dollar.
For one Canadian, this is his reality.
Last year, the Trump administration added Kimberly Prost, a judge at the International Criminal Court his list of financial sanctionsafter serving on the appeals court that in 2020 authorized the ICC prosecutor to investigate crimes committed in Afghanistan since 2003, including US personnel. The United States is not a member of the ICC and does not recognize its jurisdiction. Several some ICC judges and prosecutors was also authorized by the Trump administration.
Prost, whose name now shares the same list as the world’s most dangerous people, from terrorists to North Koreans and Iranian spies, described the impact of the sanctions on his life as “paralyzing”. interview with The Irish Times.
This high-profile case provides an example of the disruption that deportation from the US can have on a person’s daily life; policymakers and government leaders across Europe are increasingly aware of the threat looming at home, and their reliance on US technology.
The rise of Trump and the rise of international standards, plus to usurp a foreign leader and threatening to attack NATO and its European allyhave caused some EU countries to consider moving away from US technology and regaining their digital power. This change in attitude comes as the Trump administration has become unpredictable and vindictive.
In Belgium, the country’s cybersecurity chief Miguel De Bruycker agreed recent interview that Europe has “lost the Internet” to the United States, which has kept most of the world’s technological and financial information. De Bruycker said it is “currently impossible” to keep data in full in Europe because of the US control of digital devices, and urged the European Union to strengthen its technology across the bloc.
The European Parliament voted on January 22 to receive a report directing the European Commission to identify areas where the EU can reduce its dependence on foreign aid. Parliament said the European Union and its 27 member states depend on non-EU countries for more than 80% of their digital goods, services, and infrastructure. The vote was not binding, but it comes at a time when the European Commission is move to bring most of its technologies and its dependencies.
The French government said Tuesday it will replace Zoom with Microsoft Teams and its home-made video software Visioaccording to the French Minister of Public Works and Government Reform David Amiel.
Concerns about digital sovereignty are not new and date back several decades to 2001 when the US enacted the Patriot Act after the terrorist attacks of September 11. The Patriot Act allowed US intelligence agencies to monitor the world in ways they had never been allowed before, including spying on the communications of citizens of their closest allies in Europe, despite the bloc’s strict privacy and security laws.
Microsoft received a few years later in 2011 that as an American technology company it could be forced to hand over the data of European citizens in compliance with the US government’s secret order; It wasn’t until 2013 that more of this information was revealed through classified documents leaked by then-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
At the level of individual consumers, there has also been a strong push to encourage users to divest from US technology and technology providers, and technology workers. asking their superiors to speak against the increasing abuse of US federal immigration officers.
Freelance journalist Paris Marx has a guide to away from US tech jobswhile several other websites, such as change-to.eu and European Alternativesencourage users to use other Big Tech solutions and services, such as open source tools.
