Digital Sovereignty
Digital sovereignty means you decide who holds your information, who learns from it and how you leave.
Here's what that looks like for a household and for a small business, without the politics.
We're non-partisan. This is about control over your own information, not about any party, country or flag.
Your answers stay on your device. Export or delete them any time.
Plain principles you can apply at home or at work. None of them needs a technical background.
Your main email and phone number can reset almost everything else, so make sure the recovery details are yours and current. Use passkeys, or a password manager with multi-factor authentication (MFA), and keep backup codes somewhere offline.
Some AI assistants use your chats to train future models unless you switch it off, and the rules differ between free and business plans. Check the setting in every assistant you use, then decide on purpose.
Before you rely on a service, find out how to export your data and whether another service can read the file. Try it once, so leaving is a choice and not a scramble.
A provider's cloud is not a backup of last resort. Keep your most important photos, documents and records in a second place you control, such as an external drive or another account.
Give apps and AI tools only what the task needs. A question with names, account numbers and health details removed usually gets the same answer.
Use the rights you have: "Do Not Sell or Share" links, browser privacy signals and, where available, state tools for deleting your data from data brokers. Opting out is a habit, not a one-time chore.
Some work can stay on your own device or out of AI tools entirely. Keep the most sensitive material there, and accept a little less convenience in exchange.
Privacy and AI terms change, often with an email few people open. When one arrives, take two minutes to see what changed and reset your settings if you need to.
Short answer first, then the detail, with a source for every number.
For governments, digital sovereignty means control over their own technology, data and online rules. For you, it means staying in charge of your own data, identity and choices: knowing who can read or train on your information, being able to leave a service with your data, holding the keys to your own accounts, and deciding what stays on your own devices.
ReadIn practice, the company that runs the assistant holds your conversations, and its terms decide who can read them, whether they train future models and how long they're kept. Some consumer plans, including ChatGPT's, use your chats for training unless you switch it off, while the major business plans say they don't by default. You can usually export or delete your chats, but deleting doesn't undo training that already happened, and legal holds can override deletion.
ReadConcrete steps, sized for a household and for a small team.
Check who can reset your accounts
On your main email, bank and phone accounts, confirm the recovery email and phone number are yours and current. Save the backup codes on paper or in a password manager.
Guide: Digital hygiene at home: the household baselineAdd a passkey to your main email account
In your email account's security settings, choose Passkeys and follow the prompts. Keep a second way in, such as a security key or backup codes.
Guide: Digital hygiene at home: the household baselineSwitch off AI training you didn't choose
Open the data or privacy settings in each AI assistant you use and decide whether your chats may train its models.
Guide: Lock down your AI assistantsExport your data once a year
Use each service's export tool (for example Google Takeout, or Export data in your AI assistant's data settings) and save the copy to a drive you control. It doubles as a test of your exit.
Opt out of data brokers
If you live in California, file one free request through DROP (the state's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform) on privacy.ca.gov. Elsewhere, use the "Do Not Sell or Share" and opt-out links where your state's law provides them.
Own your domain and admin accounts
Register your domain and main admin accounts to the business, not to one employee or your IT provider. Keep two admins, both on phishing-resistant sign-in such as passkeys or security keys.
Guide: Digital hygiene for your business: the 1-50 person baselineWrite an exit plan for each critical vendor
For email, files, accounting and AI tools, note how to export your data, in what format, and how long the vendor keeps it after you cancel.
Put staff on business AI plans
Business plans from the major providers say they keep your data out of model training by default, and they add admin controls. Pair them with a written rule on what never goes into an AI tool.
Guide: A one-page AI use rule for your teamKnow which privacy laws reach your customers
US state laws apply based on where your customers live and on size thresholds that vary by state, and EU customers can bring in the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Ask a lawyer if you're unsure.
Honor opt-out requests and signals
Make sure your website, forms and marketing tools respect "Do Not Sell or Share" requests and browser signals like Global Privacy Control where the law requires it.
Encrypted file storage and messaging, AI that runs on your own computer, and an open-source password manager. Nobody paid to be here.
Secure file sharing
Storing and sharing sensitive files such as tax returns, IDs, contracts and client documents, with end-to-end encryption and expiring, password-protected links.
See it in the toolkitEncrypted messaging
Private texts, voice calls and video calls with family, friends and colleagues.
See it in the toolkitPrivate and business-tier AI
Running open AI models entirely on your own computer, so prompts never leave the machine.
See it in the toolkitPassword managers
Storing and filling a unique password and passkey for every account, and sharing the ones you need to with your family or team.
See it in the toolkitWords matter
We say AI because that's the word most people use. Some labs now talk about something bigger. Here are both terms in plain English, and where we stand.
Glossary
Computer systems that turn data into predictions, recommendations, decisions or new content, such as chatbots, voice assistants, spam filters and bank fraud alerts.
Full definition of Artificial intelligence (AI)Glossary
Two meanings. To AI labs: future AI far smarter than people at nearly everything. In recent US federal documents: a new name for today's AI.
Full definition of Superintelligence (SI)Names shape how people think about a technology, so we picked ours on purpose and wrote down why.
Our stance
We use “AI” as our public term everywhere, and we define “SI (super intelligence)” so readers can decode federal notices. We don't use SI in our name, tagline or ordinary copy; it appears in our glossary, this explainer, a homepage note that defines it, and when we quote federal notices that use it.
Every AI and security term on this site, decoded in a sentence or two.