Your data has a nationality. Your architecture should know it.

For our last web dev Wednesday of the year, we're ending on something a little heavier than usual: data sovereignty.

We've talked a lot about securing data, protecting its integrity, and building trustworthy web applications. But there's another layer that's becoming impossible to ignore, especially for web applications that can serve users all across the world:

Data sovereignty.

Data sovereignty means your data is subject to the laws of the country where it is stored and processed.
Not where your company is registered.
Not where your users live.
Where the servers are physically located and who owns them.

These days, privacy is not just a nice-to-have, especially in the EU; it's a legal and trust issue.

It's no longer enough to "just use a big cloud provider."
Even if their servers are in the EU. Laws like the U.S. CLOUD Act allow U.S.-based companies to be compelled to hand over data... even if that data is stored on foreign soil.

So yes, you can be an EU company, serving EU citizens, using servers located in the EU, and still not be truly sovereign if those servers are operated by a U.S. company.

Sounds dire. What can you do?

✅ For starters, use EU-based and fully controlled services
- For us, that meant migrating to:
- Scalingo for application hosting
- Scaleway for object storage
✅ Understand who has legal access to your infrastructure
✅ Be extra careful when choosing
- Analytics tools
- Error tracking
- Email providers
Because those are often the silent data exporters.

Data sovereignty is about who really controls your data. It’s about independence and keeping that control. Every project that supports local providers helps raise the bar for the entire local ecosystem.

How are you handling data sovereignty in your projects?

If this is something you’re thinking about but don’t know where or how to migrate, drop us a message. We’re happy to help you through it.