Finland and Europe must control their own digital infrastructure. I am the lead author of the digital independence citizens' initiative. With it, we demand that Finland reduce its dependency on a small number of foreign digital service providers.
Finnish public administration is heavily dependent on US hyperscalers — for example Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. The geopolitical risk of that dependency has grown substantially since 2022. Finnish and European alternatives exist: UpCloud is a concrete example of a high-performance domestic cloud provider that public sector organisations can choose today. I advocate for breaking up public IT procurement, preferring open source, and factoring in crisis resilience.
Digital independence is also about data portability and avoiding vendor lock-in. Public data generated with public money should be portable and stored in a way that foreign states cannot misuse it.
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Council initiative: digital resilience
Kirkkonummi relies on digital systems for nearly all its operations. This initiative calls for mapping dependencies and switching to open file formats.
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Digital independence is built one step at a time
Digital independence is built in every procurement decision. Helsinki chose Finnish UpCloud as the platform for its core public services system.
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Digital independence is a necessity
Finland's digital services depend on US platforms. As the US becomes unreliable, digital sovereignty is no longer optional — it is a necessity.
